Man's effort to restore cemetery struggling

The resting place of black residents of Ehren, a former lumber town, has fallen into disrepair. Proposals for the county or a private board to intervene have little support.

By JAMES THORNER

© St. Petersburg Times, published March 31, 2000

LAND O'LAKES -- West of Ehren Cutoff, between the pipeline owned by Tampa Bay Water and the grazing cattle of the Conner Ranch, lie neglected fragments of Land O'Lakes history.

Little is left of Mount Carmel Cemetery save a cluster of damaged tombstones, the barely recognizable remains of a gate and dips in the ground to mark the graves.

But Roy Hagan has made it his mission to resurrect this final resting place of the black residents of Ehren, a lumber town that thrived a century ago.

Hagan not only wants to repair these remnants from the days of segregation, he proposes reactivating the cemetery as an integrated burial ground.

"A lot of the area's black heritage has gone," said Hagan, a white-haired retiree who settled in the community after marrying local girl Betty Kersey. "There's only one black family in the neighborhood anymore."

Few have latched onto Hagan's plan.

Pasco County has owned the grounds since 1985, when a former owner deeded the property to the county in lieu of back taxes.

Pasco already operates two cemeteries, West Elfers Cemetery and Tucker Cemetery south of Dade City. The chances of Mount Carmel becoming the third are slim.

"We do not want to be in the burial business," said Richard Sliz, the county's real estate manager.

So Hagan is trying to interest local volunteers in setting up a non-profit corporation to run the cemetery.

A seven-member board of directors oversees the community's former white burial ground, Ehren Cemetery, about a mile east of Mount Carmel.

But one of those families committed to Ehren Cemetery, the Tolers, believe salvaging Mount Carmel may be an impossible dream.

Weather and vandals have toppled most of the tombstones. The bodies of the dead, unprotected by vaults, have mostly disintegrated.

The place is probably best known to local children, who sometimes use the cemetery as a spooky Halloween gathering place.

"I think it has been turned back to nature. Bodies have been exhumed over the years. I doubt there's a grave back there intact," said Glenda Toler, whose son is the caretaker at Ehren Cemetery.

"It really takes a lot of work and dedication to keep a cemetery up," Toler added. "I wouldn't want to take another cemetery on."

Hagan disagrees. Considering most of Ehren has vanished, including its former stores, schools, railroad station and mills, saving the cemetery is all the more pressing.

The names and numbers of people buried in the cemetery remain sketchy at best. The presumed recordkeeper, a Baptist church that sat alongside the graveyard, has long since collapsed.

But Hagan is sure Mount Carmel hides the last traces of some of Ehren's pioneers, black families such as the Browns, Edwardses, Dawkinses and Bowens.

"The county has dropped the ball. They aren't doing anything, and they won't let anyone else do anything," he said.

"But I think in just a very few short years it could be a thriving cemetery again."

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