St. Louis Post-Dispatch from St. Louis, Missouri • Page 15

WL 5,351 bl.LUUu to- wi-PAIUH tUNUAY, JULY isaz Families Are Anxious About Plans To Relocate Graves Part Of Historic Black Cemetery Is In Path Of Airport's Expansion 5 1 "i liff'S-a Wendi Fitzgerald Post Dispatch Markers at Washington Park Cemetery, along Interstate 70 near Lambert Field. Metro Link will encroach on the cemetery. acquiring the cemetery will delay light rail beyond its scheduled opening in 1993. Many of Wayne's relatives are buried in the gentle grassy hills sliced through by the interstate. Wayne said the issues at the cemetery are probably "the most delicate" she has handled in her 20 years as alderman.

Last week, she and other officials were startled by the discovery of a tattered, yellowed card squeezed into cemetery records indicating that 300 people were buried in one gravesite. The bodies had been moved from Wesleyan Cemetery, another black cemetery. In 1952, a St. Louis County health official told a construction company how to proceed with the move. The mass burial, said Wayne, "turned my stomach." Other people with loved ones there people like Mattie Phipps and her friend Clara Hills also hope more sensitivity will be shown this time.

For Phipps and Hills, the names on the markers at Washington Park Cemetery tell the history of the black community that shaped St. Louis, and the stories of their families. Hills, a great-grandmother from Berkeley, was alarmed to see bulldozers clearing for light rail so close to the graves of her loved ones. So far, no graves have been disrupted, officials said. "We're not going to sit still and let them disrespect us because we're black," said Hills, whose mother, Ver-lean Hughley, and stepfather, Lloyd Hughley, are buried there.

"I don't feel they have a right to do it." On Friday, Phipps was pleased to hear that there might be some good news about that cemetery. For several years, some in the community have watched aghast at the stories surrounding the cemetery. First, reports surfaced that bodies were missing and caskets were robbed or stolen. Later, the owner of the cemetery killed herself, and lawsuit after lawsuit followed. Now, airport officials are battling a man who is soliciting money from families and promising money in return.

Wayne says these are false promises. Airport officials are warning peo- By Margaret Gillerman Of the Post-Dispatch Staff Each time Mattie Phipps rides by the Washington Park Cemetery along Interstate 70 near Lambert Field, she's pained by the knowledge that her son is buried there among the toppled and shattered headstones and in the tall purple thistle. "It's awful what's happened, it's terrible," said Phipps, 67. "It was a beautiful cemetery." In the next 10 years, even more tumult will envelop the once-proud cemetery occupied mainly by blacks. The land is likely to give way to two of the largest capital improvement projects in the region a light rail line and expansion of Lambert Field.

Both are intended to help usher St Louis into the 21st century. But for Phipps, that's relatively unimportant. "My goodness, I have my son there," she said. "I have a father-in-law, and some sisters-in-laws there." St. Louis airport officials say they want to buy that part of the cemetery north of 1-70 and to relocate the graves.

They're promising to use great care. Families want respect And given the history of the cemetery, some are skeptical of the airport officials. St. Louis Alderman JoAnne Wayne, D-lst Ward, is making it a mission to help the families and to reassure them. "As God gives me the breath, the same thing that happened to our black peoples' remains when Highway 70 went through will definitely not be done with the light rail," said told a meeting of the Airport Commission last week.

Wayne, an airport commissioner, said she wasn't trying to block the relocation. "I could not care whether light rail ran or airplane flew, the cemetery relocation has got to be done right," she said. Last week, the airport board authorized spending. the first $2 million of an initial $6 million planned for the project. Some money will be used to provide religious services and new markers for each person buried there.

The spending plan now goes to the Board of Aldermen and city's Estimate Board. The city will seek federal reimbursement for 75 percent of the costs and already has received a $4 million federal grant. On July 22, the city will go before a condemnation commission to acquire the land and resolve price and ownership questions. The city must act quickly, some officials said. The Federal Aviation Administration believes that a hill on the property obstructs some departing planes.

Beyond that, some backers of the Metro Link light rail line, which will run its tracks through the cemetery, have expressed fear that delays in If the families seek religious ser pie "not to be led astray by people who process, Beard said. The airport then will move about 12,000 other graves. The airport is trying to locate relatives. Family members can call vices, or want new markers and coffins, the airport will pay. Funeral directors will be licensed and insured, and a state agency is monitoring the Bi-State Development Agency, which oversees light rail, will move about 1,600 graves at first; they'll probably be shifted later this year.

"'H The Choice Is 7f may offer them money." John Beard, an assistant director of airports whose office is handling the relocation, believes the burial of 300 people in the 1950s was a great indignity. Unfortunately, he said, "I think we will find other things like that." Washington Park Cemetery is "a history book" of race relations. The airport intended to place the 300 in a perpetual care cemetery and hold a religious service for them, Beard said. The relocation of all the graves would be handled "in the most dignified and respectful manner possible," he said. The families may choose the new cemetery.

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