The weekly chieftain. [volume] (Vinita, Craig County, Okla.) 1905-1913, 1912-05-17
Truly and sincerely,
VIM. H. MURRAY.
Fairview Cemetery.

In taking your next pleasure drive
about Vinita, enjoying the balmy sun
shine and admiring her shady avenues,
beautiful homes, and spacious, we'll
kept lawns, all lovely in the verdue
of spring, if you have not done so, it
view, the silent city of the dead, and
behold the transformation that has
taken place. Only few months since
and it was but bleak hillside, barren
of everything but the rank weeds and
grasses that grew in wild confusion,
and unkempt graves that were plac-
ed without regularity and without plan.
The loneliness and apparent lack of
memory and reverence for the dead, as
usual, first appealed to our noble wo-
men, and about two years since they
organized the Vinita Cemetery Associ-
alton and began to agitate the subject
of showing that we are neither un.
grateful or forgetful. But household
duties are manifold, and public op-
pressed with business cares made slow
response. True a beautiful concrete
gateway and creditable driveway
were built and flowers planted and a
plat made by the city engineer, and
some interest was awakened. But it
was only start. Money and time were
required and the frail strength of wo-
man has its limits.
1t was at this time when hope de-
ferred had sickened nearly every wo-
manly workers heart, that Captain
F. J. Barrett moved by that compass
sion that is characteristic every true
southern gentleman of the old school,
and perhaps also by the unmarked and
almost forgotten graves of his old com
rades who wore the gray, came to the
rescue with civic pride and magnifi-
cient purse, and supplied much of the
funds and all energy and time so bad
ly needed. Under his supervision and
largely at his expense nearly one thou
sand trees have been planted, drive
ways laid out and graded and lots
marked and numbered, till few cities
of the southwest can boast of a more
fitting cemetery, than Fairview, our
own city of the dead, amid whose
silent avenues of stately elms we shall
all sooner or later sleep. Let neither
Vinita of today, nor the greater Vinita
of tomorrow-of which the present is
but bright and beautiful foreshadow-
ing--eyer forget amid business hurry
and commercial achievement whose
hand it was that first gave life to this
movement
But still there is work to be done.
There are numerous graves that have
fallen in, which are Indicative alike of
neglect, forgetfulness and irreverence.
They contribute an air of desolation
and desuetude that is more than de-
pressing. They indicate to the passer-
by that loved ones whose lives were
spent in our service, have aroused
neither our gratitude nor our recollec-
ton This should not be, but the city
is without funds that are applicable
and appeals to the public are unayail-
ing. To do all the work will cost con-
siderable, but if only each family VIII
manifest sufficient interest in the low
ed ones missing from its own circle,
the labor will not only be light for us
all, but the general result win be a
source of pleasant pride and will pro-
woke the hope that when We are gone,
our own graves will not be forgotten.
Let each reader respond to the call
and at least regard it as an appeal
from lips that are now forever dumb.
and as many as may, emulate the noble
example of Captain Barrett who has
quietly and unostentatiously done SO
much to make Fairview, the Beautiful
City OF the Dead.