Hope Cemetery Seeking Volunteers and Organization

Hope CemetaryGalesburg’s oldest cemetery continues to age each year, and the organization taking care of the majority of the grounds is seeing limited finances for much of the upkeep.

Hope Cemetery is in need of volunteers to aid financially and through administrative roles.

That’s according to Hope Cemetery Board Member Rex Cherrington, who says board would greatly appreciate the foundation of a “Friends of Hope Cemetery” organization to help finance some of the costs the board cannot upkeep.
The cemetery is completely privately financed. Cherrington tells WGIL’s Galesburg Live, that there aren’t funds available to finance everything that needs to be done.

“The endowment is invested,” says Cherrington. “We are, of course, limited in investing in very safe investments, naturally. We are also limited to the way we can spend the money for the upkeep of the grounds and the cemetery itself. The money is not to be spent for monuments or mausoleums or even the repair of mausoleums.”

Cherrington says damages continue to ware away mausoleums and monuments each year. The cemetery board continues to provided a detailed history of the city’s past through multiple tours at the historic cemetery. Two Civil War Generals, various city founders, and early railroad investors including Silas Willard and Chauncey Colton are all buried at Hope.

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