MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Today, many eyes were focused on the meticulously maintained Arlington National Cemetery for a ceremony honoring fallen service members on this Memorial Day. Across the country, many cemeteries are not so immaculate. Meg Dalton reports from a long-neglected one in New Haven, Connecticut, where volunteers are working to bring order and beauty.
SHERILL BALDWIN: Hi.
LAURA LYNN: Hi.
BALDWIN: Are you here for the cleanup?
LYNN: I am.
BALDWIN: If you want to just park so that we're not blocking, that would be great.
LYNN: OK.
MEG DALTON: Sherill Baldwin walks down a leafy hill. Before her are rows and rows of white stones sticking out of the ground, about the size of a sheet of paper.
BALDWIN: I refer to them as, like, baby teeth because they are not coming in straight, necessarily.
DALTON: Those baby teeth are actually gravestones in a small potter's field called Blake Street Cemetery.
BALDWIN: It's where poor people were buried when they couldn't afford it themselves.
DALTON: The cemetery is small, about an acre. The gravestones are obscured by long grass, overgrown weeds, fallen trees and a lot of trash.
BALDWIN: So I have bags and sticks for picking up things.
DALTON: This morning, Baldwin and two other regular volunteers are here for a litter cleanup at the cemetery.
BALDWIN: And I think the place to start is probably - maybe around the fence line, if you don't see anything in the side...
GIULIA GAMBALE: OK.
BALDWIN: ...And then along sort of the wooded area.
DALTON: Giulia Gambale has a bag in one hand and a trash grabber in the other.
GAMBALE: What is this? Triscuit? Oreo? Trident. See, they like having fresh breath. But just, you know, pick up after yourself.
DALTON: Gambale walks over to the side of the cemetery and spots something unexpected.
GAMBALE: Looks like somebody's homework is over here (laughter). A little bit of homework. That goes in the bag. What else?
(SOUNDBITE OF UNDERGROWTH RUSTLING)
GAMBALE: I don't know what this is.
(SOUNDBITE OF UNDERGROWTH RUSTLING)
GAMBALE: More homework?
DALTON: Another volunteer, Laura Lynn, already has a full trash bag.
LYNN: I found a lot of candy wrappers, potato chip bag wrappers, a empty bottle, an empty can, piece of glass that I just picked up.
DALTON: Today, they're mostly picking up small pieces of trash. But at past litter cleanups, they've found air conditioners, even tires. Neglected cemeteries like this one are common in many parts of the United States. But people like Lynn, Gambale and Baldwin are trying to bring new life back to these spaces. They're part of a growing social movement of so-called cemetery citizens. That's a term coined by Adam Rosenblatt. He's an anthropologist and author of a book about cemetery citizens. According to him, cemetery citizens are people working to restore and honor systemically neglected cemeteries. Some volunteers do this work for personal reasons, like Gambale.
GAMBALE: My dad actually worked in a cemetery for, like, his whole life. And I just, like, learned to really love and respect cemeteries, the history, the architecture.
DALTON: Baldwin says every person's motivations are unique, but they have a shared goal - to reinsert these spaces into the social fabric.
BALDWIN: You know, everybody's got different things and different ways of honoring those that have passed. Cemeteries are definitely sacred places.
DALTON: Baldwin hopes Blake Street Cemetery becomes a place not only for the dead but for the living. For NPR News, I'm Meg Dalton in New Haven, Connecticut.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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