I’ve thought long and hard about whether or not to post this video. It meets all of the forum's criteria for a post but it is personally tied to us and may have little interest for folks who were not involved in the project.

I retired from a large mental health facility in 1999 and, subsequently, spent about five years on a project to restore a huge cemetery (20,000 graves) that had been neglected for decades. Patients had been buried on the grounds from 1840 to about the time I retired. For many complicated but inexcusable reasons the grounds had fallen into a state of neglect, e.g., overgrown, iron numerical markers missing and a host of other problems. This issue had disturbed me throughout my career at the facility.

Around the time I retired the State of GA promised mental health advocates and others that the grounds would be restored and maintained in perpetuity. I coordinated these restoration efforts that involved many, many interested dedicated parties. From the time I went to work at the facility in 1968 until this day it is a powerful emotional experience to walk through the acres and acres of grave sites and think about the people buried there — some of whom were born at the hospital and lived their entire life there.

After years of work we were able to get the grounds on the Federal Register of Historic Places and achieve significant restoration of the cemetery. In 2009 the Today Show featured the cemetery (and yours truly) in a Bob Dotson American Story segment. They did a nice production but focused almost solely on me finding a completely forgotten African-American cemetery years earlier and helping a lady find her grandfather's burial site. But it still brought a lot of attention to a problem that exists all over the country. Afterwards I heard about many other situations. One state had hundreds of crumbling boxes of cremated remains in a damp basement. Another had built a golf course over a patient cemetery. Based on what we accomplished a national memorial is being created in DC in recognition of these people who rest in so many places likes this. It's timely because the reduced stigma of mental illness and the increased interest in genealogy has created a lot of interest in these and other such cemeteries.

At a dedication of the grounds Janice and I performed a song we had written about a hypothetical young lady who lived her life at the hospital and was buried there. The vid has only few photos taken by me over the years - it may seem slow but the pix are relevant to the story. They mean a lot to thousands of individuals who were patients there at one time but will likely have little appeal to others.

Apologies for the ramble but I felt some background was necessary.

Here’s my Today Show appearance and article (the vid link appears at different places on different devices)

City of Lost Graves

Here's the song and video:

Sally's Lament

All bluegrass RTs
Mixed in Garageband
Vocal: Rodes NT1 via Blue Icicle USB

Last edited by Janice & Bud; 12/07/13 07:56 AM.
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