A vandalized cemetery begins to bounce back
Friends, relatives and helpers worked to repair damage at a historic Collingdale grave site.
The desecration of a historic African American cemetery sent Edith Worley Johnson on a tearful search.
She was standing in the middle of the Harriet Tubman section of Eden Cemetery in Collingdale yesterday, scanning the toppled headstones.
"Maybe that's it," said Johnson, 81, of Philadelphia. Maybe the granite marker lying face-down was the one commemorating six of her family members buried beneath it.
Yesterday, Johnson was among the scores of relatives, friends and helpers who restored a sense of peace to a final resting place. They came to check on the graves of loved ones, lend support, and right the toppled headstones.
Eden Cemetery, founded in 1902, has been hit over the last two weeks by what police say they believe is a band of vandalizing teenagers. They managed to upend 201 gravestones in a cemetery that is the resting place of historic figures, including opera singer Marian Anderson and civil rights leader Octavius Valentine Catto.
"What kind of gratification do people get out of doing this?" Johnson said.
As of yesterday, police had no suspects and were continuing to canvass the area, said Police Chief Robert Adams, who visited the cemetery yesterday.
"I've been here 28 years," Adams said, "and I was totally unaware of the history of the U.S. that is in this cemetery. It's a history book between two gates."
Adams says he does not believe the desecration was racially motivated. Neither, he says, does Junious Rhone, who manages the cemetery and serves as treasurer on its board of directors. He says he thinks the vandals were teenagers neighbors reportedly saw in the cemetery when police believe the incidents occurred.
But concerned residents and worried relatives disagreed yesterday about the role of race.
Linda Osinupebi, founder and president of the NAACP branch in Yeadon Borough, says the effort required to topple 201 stones, which Adams said could weigh as much as 500 pounds each, points to a darker motivation than mischief.
The Friends of Historic Eden Cemetery, a supporting organization, has scheduled a meeting on Wednesday to discuss the vandalism.
The toppled stones were set upright yesterday mostly by nonviolent offenders working off their community service, aid that Adams set in motion.
The family members who visited yesterday included Joan Moore, 59, of Wynnefield, who found of the graves of cousins Alton and Marlyn Butts undisturbed. Robert Fuller Houston, of Philadelphia, whose relatives was among the original owners of cemetery, was not as lucky. He helped the men right his family's toppled marker.
Meanwhile, in the Harriet Tubman section, Johnson waited as four men lifted the marker she suspected was her family's. It was.
"Thank you," she said to the men. "Thank you."