More than 100 unmarked graves found in Callaway County cemetery

The sun sets on another productive day at Middle River Cemetery where Michael Banak has been working for the last three years to locate graves and buried markers in an effort to remap the hilltop Tebbetts cemetery.
The sun sets on another productive day at Middle River Cemetery where Michael Banak has been working for the last three years to locate graves and buried markers in an effort to remap the hilltop Tebbetts cemetery.

TEBBETTS, Mo. - What started as a search for early Callaway County pioneer graves has become a pioneering work for cemetery mapping.

Across the Middle River Memorial Cemetery just off Route PP stand more than 100 sticks interspersed among the headstones dating back to the 1840s. The sticks indicate the multitude of unmarked graves discovered through the use of multiple research methods by Michael Banak, owner of Adventures with Professional Technologies.

For more than three years, Banak and the cemetery's association have been combing through paper maps and documents, as well as using simple and technological tools on the ground.

At first, the electronics engineer said he thought the project would be quick and simple. They had 40 names unaccounted for, and he expected he could find about half of those gravesites using ground penetrating radar and a ground poker.

"It started out as pretty straightforward; the number of unmarked burials shocked us all," Banak said.

Middle River Cemetery has about 350 known stones. Banak has discovered more than 150 additional burials.

"We approached Michael because we knew we had a map that was not accurate," association President Faye Zumwalt said. "We knew we had to do something."

Zumwalt said her hope was to be able to identify each person buried there, especially those in the oldest part of the cemetery.

"After we found the first few stakes, I realized that was never going to happen," she said.

Without the land-grant Middle River Church records, which likely were lost in a fire a century ago, they have no accurate accounting for the burials that go back to the 1840s.

However, they continue to research who they can.

As information is collected - from burial GPS coordinates to birth and death dates - it is compiled into a giant Excel database. Then, it is converted into a searchable KMZ file uploaded to Google Earth.

Banak is using techniques he learned in academic arenas and applying them on a broad scale here. He hopes this project may result in a new method for mapping cemeteries and collecting genealogical data.

Accessibility is one of the primary goals of the project.

That's why Banak is using the free-access, internet-based platform, and they already have made presentations to the Callaway County Historical Society and the county recorder's office to provide final maps and information for their collections.

"We want this to be easy for people find," Zumwalt said, whether they're physically in the cemetery looking for the burial location or sitting at home doing genealogical research.

Today, Banak is about one-third of the way through locating the likely unmarked burials in Middle River Cemetery, he said.

"The most fun part is whenever I hit a clink," he said. "You're finding something that maybe hasn't been seen in 100 years."

The most difficult part is interpreting the data from the ground penetrating radar, he said.

"There's a lot of weight on my shoulders for that kind of decision" - is this a possible burial or is it definitely nothing, Banak said.

The technology, housed in a rolling device that looks similar to a push lawn mower, takes digital image under the ground at 6-inch intervals.

If he sees a disturbance in overlapping images, then he'll pull out his poker to look for a burial.

"It can look like Swiss cheese after I've been poking between two headstones," he said.

One headstone is for a 2-month-old from 1855. Banak said he wondered whether the child was actually buried there, but the radar confirmed he was.

The slow, meticulous effort does pay off.

"We've found some terrific stones," Banak said.

He found a perfectly intact stone of America Knight that had fallen face down and been covered by lawn.

"It was a joy to find," he said.

Often, Banak draws from his familiarity with the cemetery, his paper-based research, geologic evidence and other sources to make deductions

"This has a highly forensic flavor to it," he said. "I've got good instincts now."

He has found unattached stones laying around the cemetery and has been able to identify from which base they belong.

"The pay-off is when the stone fits," Banak said.

The physical locations then allow the association to have a more accurate map of where people are buried.

That also helps when funeral homes contact association Treasurer Lola Wekenborg wanting to identify a plot for a new burial.

"For a number of years, we've been saying we don't know who is buried here, and so we don't know what's available," Wekenborg said.

Eventually, the association will place brick markers at each of the unnamed burial sites, Zumwalt said. They hope to find civic organizations, youth groups or individuals to help volunteer for the project.

And they would like to connect with families who may have relatives buried there for further information.

"I'm disappointed we will not be able to name all of them," Zumwalt said. "Regardless, these are people who helped to settle this county. It's still important, close-to-home history, even if we don't know who they are."

Anyone interested in the Middle River Memorial Cemetery or area history of Tebbetts and Callaway County is welcome to the cemetery association's meeting and basket lunch at 12:30 p.m. today at Dixie Christian Church, at the intersection of routes BB and PP.

Call 573-635-9551 or email [email protected] for more information.