Catholic Cemetery

That has all changed thanks to a group of local volunteers.St. Michael’s Catholic Cemetery, which sits across the road from St. John’s Evangelical German Lutheran Church in the town of Ridgeville, has been the recipient of a facelift thanks to members of the Knights of Columbus Council 4125. The project, which began in May 2016, has been a long, complex process, said Wenzel Felber, project chairman. It has taken over 1,000 hours and over 100 volunteers to repair the property.Felber said records found at St. John’s Catholic Church in Wilton show that St. Michael’s parish was established in 1864 and disbanded in 1878, leaving 58 people buried at the church’s cemetery.Executive director of the Tomah Area Historical Society and Knights of Columbus member Jim Weinzatl, said the cemetery was forgotten after the church burned down.“We believe the church burned down about 1870, was never rebuilt and left the cemetery here,” he said. “It has been abandoned for a number of years and dealt with vandalism.”The cemetery was in dire need of help, Felber said.“The first thing we did was remove five huge, dead pine trees ... that took a couple of days,” he said. “Then we worked the fence line, and that took four or five days — we had brush piles that we burned last winter.”He said some of the brush piles were as high as 14 feet.Gravestones also had to be fixed, Felber said. He said 90 percent of them needed to be restored.“We did that after we got the brush and stuff cleaned out,” he said.Pieces of monuments were scattered around the property. The top of one monument was found underneath another, and some gravestones had tipped over and had to be dug out, Felber said.Not all of the damage was caused by the passage of time and neglect, Felber said.“I was told that (around) 25 years ago ... that vandals went through here and busted up a bunch of stuff and other cemeteries around here,” he said.The cemetery was also used as a dumping ground, Felber said.“We found old toilets and garbage, tires, you name it, thrown out here,” he said. “Then this spri... (La Crosse Tomah Journal)

Police say that someone entered the cemetery and defaced the Father Doherty Monument with red spray paint.Catholic monument sprayed with red graffiti. (Photo credit: The Archdiocese of Boston)The cemetery is operated by the Archdiocese of Boston.Monument defaced in Catholic Mount Auburn Cemetery. (Photo credit: Archdiocese of Boston)Spokesman Father Terry Donilin says work to clean the monument has been going on since Wednesday.Mount Auburn Cemetery reports that the Father Doherty monument is the only one to be sprayed with paint. (CBS Boston / WBZ)