The Linney-Acie Cemetery Association is inviting community members to roll up their sleeves and help preserve one of the area’s historic cemeteries during its annual Community Work Weekend later this month.
Volunteers are encouraged to participate on Friday, July 24, from 6 to 8:30 p.m., or Saturday, July 25, from 7 to 10:30 a.m., at Linney & Acie Cemetery, 399 N. Colbert St. in Dayton.
The work weekend focuses on improving and beautifying the cemetery while helping preserve it for future generations. Planned projects include filling low spots and improving drainage, cleaning ditches, installing culvert walkways, removing old fence posts and filling post holes, cleaning headstones, removing faded flower arrangements, weed eating, trimming brush and general landscape cleanup.
Volunteers of all ages are welcome, and community service hours will be available for those who need them. Participants are encouraged to bring work gloves, wheelbarrows, shovels, rakes, small tractors or other yard tools if they have them available.
The Linney-Acie Cemetery Association hopes the event will bring neighbors together while protecting an important piece of the community’s history. The cemeteries are the resting place of many local families, including hundreds of veterans who served in the U.S. military and white and black pioneers to the Dayton area.
“It takes a community to preserve our history. Hope to see y’all at the cemetery!” said Lynda Young.
Whether you can help for an hour or the whole weekend, Young said everyone is welcome to participate.
For more information, call 832-427-9096. Donations to support the cemetery’s upkeep are also accepted through the Linney-Acie Cemetery Association.
I am related to all the McGowan’s, Fries, Rosser, Dunahoo and many others that are buried in Linney Cemetery. I live in Colorado but was born and raised in Liberty. My mother was Nelda Elaine McGowan, oldest daughter of Herman Clarence McGowan and Ethel Lucy Izard.