Ohio County Cemeteries Foundation: Call for Volunteers
The Ohio County Cemeteries Foundation needs your help as we undertake our first restoration work session at Wheeling’s historic Peninsula Cemetery.
Saturday, July 27
Monument restoration training session presented by Preservation Alliance of WV
9:00 to noon, WVNCC Education Center, 10 17th Street, Room 121E
- Certificates will be awarded after completing the course
- Lunch provided
- Hands on work session follows training, noon at Peninsula Cemetery
Sunday, July 28
- Cleaning, repair work session, 10:00 to 3:00, you can come and go as your schedule permits
- Training is not required, and no experience is necessary
- Wear sunscreen and a hat, protective shoes, and bring work gloves and a folding chair; water and lunch provided.
To register for the training and/or the work sessions, please contact Sharon David, sharon@pawv.org
The Ohio County Cemeteries Foundation, a non-profit organization founded in June 2023, is working to restore cemeteries without financial support. In addition to Peninsula, our current projects include Mt. Wood and Stone Church Cemeteries.
About Peninsula Cemetery:
In 1851 the City of Wheeling purchased 21 acres from Daniel Steenrod to establish a new city burying ground. Interments from existing cemeteries were relocated to the new cemetery. Peninsula Cemetery has over 10,000 graves, of which 300+ veterans’ graves have been identified.
In 1964 the Interstate 70 highway and Wheeling Tunnel project cut through the cemetery and over 2,500 remains were exhumed and re-interred in several area cemeteries.
While the City maintains the cemetery – cutting grass, removing debris and paving roads –
it does not have sufficient staff, equipment or expertise to do restoration work. That’s where the Ohio County Cemeteries Foundation and YOU come in. We need volunteers! Your help will make a difference.
About the Ohio County Cemeteries Foundation, Inc.
The Ohio County Cemeteries Foundation, a 501 c 3 non-profit organization, was established in June 2023 to raise funds for restoration and preservation of cemeteries that lack an active association and board of directors. Thirty-six cemeteries in Ohio County fall into this category, including small family cemeteries on private property. A number of the larger cemeteries are owned by the City of Wheeling or Ohio County, among them Mt. Wood, Peninsula, Stone Church and Roney’s Point. While they are regularly maintained, major work resetting and repairing broken monuments requires raising private support, which is the aim of the Ohio County Cemeteries Foundation.
The inspiration for the Foundation came directly from the initiative to restore Mt. Wood Cemetery. Undertaken in 2013 by then Wheeling Heritage historian Bekah Karelis, this long term project gained both volunteer and fundraising momentum. A Mt. Wood Fund was established at the Community Foundation for the Ohio Valley with contributions from individuals, and from book sales and other events. Bekah left Wheeling Heritage in 2018 to join Sarel Venter’s Adventures in Elegance, an historic renovation business. With Bekah’s new role, the Mt. Wood Cemetery restoration project was paused. With the foundation’s establishment, work at Mt. Wood has resumed with a great deal of improvement there plainly evident.
In 2022 a core group of Friends of Wheeling members, a number of whom were volunteers and donors to the Mt. Wood initiative, began identifying lesser known “orphaned” cemeteries to understand the scope of other cemeteries in need. We chose to focus initially on continuing work at Mt. Wood, and expanding to address needs at Stone Church, Peninsula and Roney’s Point Cemeteries. While trained volunteers can do a great deal of work, larger monuments require professional equipment and expertise, which is expensive.
Our first new project was at Stone Church Cemetery in Elm Grove where in May 2022 a restoration workshop was conducted by John Appell of Atlas Restoration Co., arranged by Friends of Wheeling prior to the foundation’s establishment. Our submission for this workshop was chosen as West Virginia’s site among the 48 states selected nationally. The workshop demonstrated how to clean, reset monuments and repair footers. It was followed by a volunteer work day in October. Both were well attended and received support from the City of Wheeling, Ohio County Commission and volunteer groups from the Elm Grove Volunteer Fire Dept., Engineered Foundation Solutions and Scout Troop 6. Last October the Fort Henry Chapter, Sons of the American Revolution installed a sign listing the names of 18 patriots buried there. The sign’s QR code takes a visitor to profiles of the patriots with photos of the graves with GPS coordinates. Work at Stone Church Cemetery continued last October 22 from 9:00 to 3:00 with 60 volunteers.
Your support as a volunteer and/or donor is needed!
Watch for our posts about forthcoming training and work sessions.
Monetary contributions to the Foundation are tax deductible and are welcome in any amount. Donations can be mailed to OCCF, Box 1, 1400 Main Street, Wheeling, WV 26003
Ohio County Cemeteries Foundation Board of Directors:
Jay Frey, president/secretary
Jeanne Finstein, vice president/treasurer
Sharon David, ex-officio
Bekah Karelis
Peggy Niebergall
Scott Schenerlein
