News
Clarksville woman: Cemetery work causing problems
By JAKE LOWARY • The Leaf-Chronicle • January 24, 2010
Restoration and improvements are routine at Mount Olive Cemetery,
and are often met with wide approval and support.
But one nearby resident says the dozens of people who volunteer on
occasion could be more respectful of her property.
Jessica Saunders, who lives right next to the nearly 200-year-old
African American cemetery, insists she is not against the cemetery’s
presence or even the improvements being made, but says there could
be more prudence given to her property and privacy while the work
goes on.
“I’m all for it,” Saunders said Saturday during a tour of her
property while describing the discussions and, in some cases fear,
she feels when people she doesn’t know are there.
“They’re strangers,” she said.
Saunders said flocks of people venture onto her property, have cut
down her trees, and sometimes refused to cooperate with her requests
to stay off her family’s land. She said she has called the police
several times, along with neighbors, but has not been met with kind
favor.
“How am I to say someone is going to step on my property and fall
and sue me,” she said.
Saunders and her family, a husband and six children, live on a
limited budget and aren’t able to afford an attorney, she added.
Saunders said inmates from the Montgomery County Jail also have been
taken to the cemetery to clean it up, but that leaves Saunders with
fear for herself and children with only one or two officers
monitoring the inmates — sometimes as many as two dozen in number.
Saunders’ husband is in the military at Fort Campbell and is
preparing to deploy, adding to her worry.
“I’m scared to death,” she said.
A planned 500-person cleanup effort is set for April 24, organized
by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Part of that
project is the construction of a fence in front of Saunders’ house
along the access road, which she does not favor.
Saunders said she has no problem with a fence along the cemetery
property line, which would prevent teenagers from entering the
cemetery to “smoke and do drugs,” something she says she’s
witnessed, but the fence would separate two pieces of her property
and not make the property any more attractive. Geneva Bell,
executive director for the Mount Olive Cemetery Historical
Preservation Society, said she and other volunteers have always
offered to cooperate with Saunders about her worries, but feels
Saunders “just doesn’t want the cemetery to be there.”
Bell is also firm about the construction of the fence.
“I stand on that, the fence will go up,” she said.
There’s been particular problems with a triangle-shaped piece of
land between Rollins Road and an access road to the cemetery.
Saunders says it’s hers — exhibited by a paid survey of the parcel —
but Bell also says she’s been told by the city of Clarksville it
belongs to the cemetery.
Bell admitted she ignored Saunders initially, but said later she
decided “that’s just not right” and agreed to stay off the small
piece of land.
Saunders said it’s not even necessary to use the road, as there is
supposed to be access through a church parking lot off Cumberland
Drive.
There also have been differences in opinion over prejudicial motive.
Bell suspects the Saunders of being prejudiced to a degree, but
Saunders insists she and her husband and family are not.
“We’re the farthest thing from racists, we just want respect for our
property,” she said.
Saunders said there’s also a privacy issue, as she has seen people
standing in her front yard chatting in the morning and allegedly
looking into her windows. Part of the reason she and her husband
purchased the home in 2004 was because of its seclusion, and now she
says that privacy is gone. “I dont want to close my windows during
the day,” she said.
Saunders said she and her husband have also had to install a costly
water pump to remove flooding from her land every time it rains,
which she says is caused by brush placed in a ravine on the
cemetery’s property that allows the water to flow away.
Saunders said she also had to foot the bill when a large tree on the
cemetery’s property fell onto hers, damaging a shed.
Bell said she is willing to work with Saunders about her concerns,
and doesn’t want any more bad blood.
“We’ll do whatever we can, we want to be good neighbors,” she said.
Jake Lowary covers military affairs. He can be reached at 245-0719
or by e-mail at
jakelowary@theleafchronicle.com.
Jake Lowary covers military affairs. He can be reached at 245-0719
or by e-mail at
jakelowary@theleafchronicle.com.