FALL NEWSLETTER 2024
Dear Friends of Elmwood,
Waterloo Elmwood Cemetery continues to provide a beautiful, peaceful resting place for our families and friends. Your cemetery maintenance staff, board, and manager are always here to provide the long-term planning and daily care of this special space. It’s our privilege. Thank you!
MORE VANDALISM
Sadly, we have to report more vandalism in our peaceful space. You remember we experienced significant vandalism just a few years ago. The response from the community and our local law enforcement was overwhelming at that time. It appears a single individual was responsible this time. About twenty-five gravestones were tipped over. We will be able to do most of the repairs in-house, but will utilize outside assistance again, as needed. A new camera installed for just such unfortunate situations captured the lone man entering the cemetery. Local police are using that video image to apprehend the misguided vandal. Conversations will continue as to how to make our cemetery safer.
AND YET MORE NEW TREES
We continue to add trees to your cemetery. Our cemetery care-takers have done a wonderful job of maintaining the many trees we’ve added since the Ash borer claimed a hundred trees. Over a dozen more trees were added this year. Some of them were purchased with cemetery funds and others were purchased by families wanting to add more natural beauty to the quiet resting place of their family members. You may donate a tree as a memorial to a loved one or simply in honor of your family. If you’re interested, just call Joe Fox, our cemetery manager. He will help you select the best location for your tree memorial. What a beautiful, growing, long-lasting gift that can be.
NEW ENTRYWAY
In an earlier newsletter we told you about our new entryway. We have received many positive comments about the beautiful, clean look of our new entry space. We again offer a huge “Thank You!” to the Kieber’s for their generous memorial bench. The Keiber Family granite bench memorial sets off our cemetery entrance beautifully. Their family and all Elmwood families will appreciate this memorial for years. And there are opportunities to make a lasting memorial of a flagpole, as well. With a contribution of $3500, one of the two lit, entryway flagpoles will be made a memorial with a bronze plaque. Is that something your family may be interested in?
COMING SOON … WE HOPE
We would like to add another feature to our entryway. An attractive, aluminum kiosk similar to this rendering would house a map of the cemetery showing the sections clearly. It would also have information as to where your family members are located within the cemetery. Signs throughout the cemetery would help identify those sections. The total cost for this project will be about
$30,000. Your cemetery gifts can help make these kinds of projects come to reality. Thank you!
MEMORIAL DAY
For those who were able to visit, they found a beautiful cemetery full of flags last Memorial Day. Scout Troop 144 again helped place hundreds of American flags on the grave markers of our veterans. Due to the previous work of the Cedar Falls chapter of the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution, we had even more graves identified as veterans. Thank you to all of our veterans! Thank you to the Scouts of Troop 144 for their help! Thank you to YOU for the donations you make to keep these traditions alive in your cemetery! It is so important to keep all of these memories.
PLEASE CONSIDER CREATING A MEMORIAL FOR A LOVED ONE!
THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT IN THE PAST!
YOUR GENEROUS GIFTS MAKE ALL OF THIS POSSIBLE!
AND THANK YOU FOR CONSIDERING ANOTHER GIFT THIS YEAR! http://WaterlooElmwoodCemetery.org
Best regards! Stay healthy!
Your Waterloo Elmwood Cemetery
Association Board & Staff
Mike Walden, Kristine Hirsch, Paul Greene
Jay Koweil, Rodger Smith, John Rausch, Kelly Young, Michelle Walden
with the help of John Speas, Josef Fox, Paul Huting
