Oakwood Cemetery tour planned for Oct. 14

The committee raising money to improve the two Grand Army of the Republic circles at Oakwood Cemetery is planning a historic cemetery tour in mid-October.

The tour, “In the Shadows of Oakwood,” will start at 5:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 14. The tour will take about 75 minutes. A reception will follow from 7 to 8 p.m. at Edwards Manor Hour, 1527 Morgan. The tour’s rain date is Nov. 4.

Dave Mattox and John Cole will lead the tour that makes 17 stops in Oakwood, including the gates of the cemetery, gravesites and the Edwards mausoleum near the cemetery entrance. E.H. Edwards, a businessman who arrived in Parsons in the late 1870s, once owned what is now called Edwards Manor House, an operating bed and breakfast where the reception will take place. Edwards later became president of Parsons Commercial Bank.

Mattox and Cole will share historical information at these 17 stops, some of which include weird or quirky facts and details, Mattox said. He said the information won’t be spooky or scary, even though the event is near Halloween.

One of the stops will discuss the G.A.R. circles, which Historic Oakwood Cemetery Improvements is raising money to rehabilitate. Two funds have been set up at the Parsons Area Community Foundation, an endowed fund and a non-endowed fund. The non-endowed fund can be used for circle improvements sooner. Only the interest can be used from the endowed fund. Mattox said the committee has raised about $50,000 for the non-endowed fund, including a grant, in the first year. He’s also working to get the cemetery placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Mattox said the tour will involve walking about three-quarters of a mile. Most of the gravesites will be near a road or alley in the cemetery so the audience, which he hopes will be 100 or more people, can navigate easily without disturbing other graves.

“That took some logistics to figure out. We don’t want people sitting on stones. We won’t want people walking over other things. So that took a little bit of doing,” he said.

Mattox has conducted historical research on Parsons for years in his spare time. He said he has a huge list of people in his files that could be included in a tour but he had to limit the numbers to graves in the older part of the cemetery and those in locations that flowed easily for a tour group.

He said one gravestone on the tour has had weird occurrences around it, according to a former sexton of the cemetery. Another stop will discuss two unrelated gentlemen who died 30 years apart but their deaths had a type of connection.

“Most of the people on the tour were people that were here in the very beginning if not in 1871,” Mattox said.

He will mention the potter’s field on the tour. This is where the city’s poor were buried without grave markers. Mattox said a review of records shows about 1,100 people were buried in one potter’s field through the first 20 years of 1900. The county purchased land for the second potter’s field in the Coffey addition in the 1930s, Mattox said.

Stafford and Westervelt’s parking lot will be available for parking. Mattox said there is room for 25 to 30 cars there. The rest of those attending will have to park in the cemetery and walk back to the entrance to start the tour. Attendants will be on hand to oversee parking, he said.