Veterans organizations, Scouting America, the Boys and Girls Club of East Mississippi, community clubs and more worked to clean trash and debris from Magnolia Cemetery on Saturday during a community work day organized by the Magnolia Cemetery Improvement Project.

 

The Project, founded in 2023 to help improve and maintain Magnolia Cemetery, recently completed a $200,000 leveling, patching and paving initiative along the cemetery roads.

 

“We’re really pleased with the way that turned out,” said Tracey Braddock Jones, chairperson for the Magnolia Cemetery Improvement Project.

 

The organization is now trying to raise $50,000 to seal coat the roads, which will help keep them in good shape going forward, Jones said.

 

Saturday’s work day was organized to tidy up the cemetery ahead of the Easter holiday, Jones said, and help the cemetery’s staff have an easier time maintaining the grounds heading into spring and summer. With volunteers from a variety of groups, clubs and organizations, she said turnout for the event was fantastic.

 

“A huge shout out to all the people that showed up, the Boys and Girls Club, and I cannot thank the veterans groups and the Stronger Together, Mike Couch, who has done so much to help pull in local volunteers,” she said.

 

Magnolia Cemetery, founded in 1836, is the final resting place of generations of Meridianites, including famous names such as the Key Brothers, who pioneered aerial refueling, longtime Congressman G.V. Sonny Montgomery and more.

 

A privately owned, perpetual care cemetery, Jones said some residents may wonder why the cemetery doesn’t take care of maintenance and upkeep on its own. Perpetual care is, after all, included in the costs of burial plots. With the cemetery now more than 126 years old, however, costs today are much higher than they were when many of the older portions of the cemetery were filled, she said.

 

“I don’t know this for absolute, but it kind of stands to reason that those people who were buried 126 years ago, if they paid anything for perpetual care, it was pennies on the dollar,” she said. “But yet, those sections of the cemetery that are the oldest are by far the most labor intensive to take care of.”

 

Cemeteries such as Magnolia Cemetery maintain a perpetual care fund to pay for upkeep and maintenance of the grounds, however state law restricts owners to using only interest and growth from the fund and prohibits the use of principle. In an exception, the Secretary of State’s office allowed Magnolia to take $100,000 from its perpetual care fund to help cover phase 1 of the paving project, but that will not be allowed a second time.

Magnolia Cemetery is a key part of Meridian’s history, with generations of families, household names and veterans of every U.S. conflict from the Civil War onward interred there, Jones said, and the Magnolia Cemetery Improvement Project is aimed at protecting and preserving that history.

 

Those wanting to support the organization can donate through the Community Foundation of East Mississippi or online at magnoliameridian.com. Memorial bricks are also available for purchase as well, Jones said.

 

For more information about the Magnolia Cemetery Improvement Project, its goals, board members and more, visit magnoliameridian.com.