REDWOOD NEWS: The concept of Memorial Gardens dates to ancient times. They offer a rich history and personal significance in many cultures and traditions around the world. In earlier times in America, they used to hold band concerts and picnics right here in these peaceful settings. With me today is Debbie Toppin and Tim Kilburn. How are you guys doing today? Good. So how did you, Debbie, start coming to the cemeteries and doing work?
DEBBIE TOPPING: Well, I was doing family history research and a friend, Percy, was introduced me to FIND A GRAVE, and I realized that it it’s headstones. And you get a lot of information off of headstones and all the photography is done by volunteers. So I started coming out to all the local cemeteries, but Myrtle hadn’t been covered much, so I started photographing graves and also probing for markers that I that weren’t showing up that should have been here. And it I kind of got hooked and.
REDWOOD NEWS: Tim Is that, is that how you started noticing that there was a maintenance that needed to be taken care of in this cemetery?
TIM KILBURN Well, we kind of took over the maintenance. I mean, the city used to bring in their big mower, the golf course mower right now and mow. But when we started putting the stones back up, sending them back up, they couldn’t do that anymore. So we took over the mowing at that point.
REDWOOD NEWS And I’ve noticed that you are saying that some are buried and you have to use these probes debris. Can you hold that up? You have to use this probe to actually dig, dig down and hit them. Yes. And then after that, you.
DEBBIE TOPPING The fun part when you can poke, poke, poke and have a go to function. You know, you found somebody down there, not somebody just the marker.
REDWOOD NEWS: And you’ve you’ve found quite a few in from these photographs that I’m showing you are bringing them back to life, so to speak. Yes. They’re not like they should be.
REDWOOD NEWS: Tim, let me ask you. Are are you asking for volunteers for your group?
TIM KILBURN Oh, yeah, all the time. Anybody wants to come out. Come out Wednesday at 10:00.
REDWOOD NEWS: Debbie, what’s this I’m hearing about the radar used?
DEBBIE TOPPING Oh, we it’s it’s a it’s a pipe dream. Hopefully not. Somebody out there has got access to ground penetrating radar right now. The ground’s hard, and in the spring, sometimes we can’t. Do you know, we may go and miss something. So if we could get get something to look down in the ground and find those markers so we can pull the rest of them up, it would be lovely.
REDWOOD NEWS Tim Kilburn and Debbie Topping here at Myrtle Grove Cemetery. Thanks for inviting us here.
