Fixing Lutheran Cemetery fence labour of love

Mark Clairmont | MuskokaTODAY.com

KILWORTHY — If Bruce Schulz were to walk you through the little Lutheran Cemetery, it would take you “all day.”

“I know all the people. I could tell you stories about each one,” he says.

The Lehmans, the Jarricks, the Sophers, the Middlebrooks’, the Sewells, the Kocks and the Cox’s … the long list goes on of who’s buried there

Indeed he could, his great-grandfather, August Schulz, and his family are all buried there.

So are both his parents.

Both Bruce and his wife, Carol, have family plots waiting for them.

In fact there are 17 full-size Schulz family plots at the plot of land down the Kilworthy Road, past Sopher’s Landing and near the Schells’ farm.

And not far from where Clarence Armstrong and his family homesteaded.

The same with Steve McDonald’s clan.

So, no wonder Schulz, Armstrong and McDonald were down there this week putting in dozens of new metal posts and stringing up a few hundred feet of plastic fencing on the section facing the busy Kilworthy Road.

Schulz’s brother Fred was also on hand.

If ever there was a labour of love, it was by these Good Samaritans.

“It had fallen down over the years and the town never got around to fixing it,” said Bruce. “It was always in next year’s budget.

“It looked terrible.”

So, they came “across some money” (about $1,200) and the four of them did most of the work on a hot Monday morning and afternoon.

They did it in the spirit of their ancestors who laboured in the same way before them.

The wording on the sign above the gate as they entered the cemetery — spelled out in sticks of wood — reads: ‘Lutheran Cemetery. In God Is Our Trust. Erected in Loving Memory of the Pioneers of Morrison Township.’

Remember Arthur Schulz and the Kilworthy Store? He’s buried there.

Bruce used to help him dig graves in the cemetery 61 years.

“I was 10 and I’m 71 now,” says Schulz.

The first recorded person buried their dates back to 1878.

And over the years the peaceful resting place in the middle the old Morrison Township — surrounded on three sides by tall trees now — was basically maintained by family members who had plots and would take turns cutting the grass and generally maintaining the property in worker bees.

Someone was responsible for maintaining a log of who was buried where and what plots were taken or available

There used to be a little church there, says Bruce, but it’s long gone.

It was somehow associated and registered with the Lutheran Church, the last link tied to a church on Avenue Road in Toronto, which is no longer there, he says.

For many years, families with large plots would each give maybe $30 a year to a custodian who would cut and grass and keep up the property.

Then about a decade ago a few families formed a community board and ran it for about three years, so they could officially turn it over five years ago to the town, who run it now.

The cemetery still gets used. There are some fresh flowers each summer.

But Bruce says with so many cremations today, there’s little need for big plots any more.

He’s had Sanderson Monuments come in and lift the Schulz family headstone and make more room to add his and Carol’s names, along with his first wife, Carol.

It’s a given that Bruce, Fred and Clarence and Steve will all end up there.

Hopefully, not too son. But they’re getting there — they’re in their 60s, 70s and 80s.

No wonder, as they finished up Monday, Clarence (the 81-year-old former Brown’s Beverages worker and pop machine handyman) laughed as he said: “We’d better get out of here before we end up, too soon.”

Well, when that day comes, they can approach the pearly gates knowing they’ve mended some fences in life.

That should get them in easily.

See some of the people’s names of who’s buried there at the Muskoka Parry Sound Genealogy Group’s website.

http://mpsgg.com/History/muskoka/cemeteries/morrison/pioneer/

How to get to the Lutheran Cemetery:

Traveling south along Highway 11, turn west onto Highway 19, Biers Road, about 6 km south of Gravenhurst. If you are traveling north along Highway 11, take the Sedore Road exit about 12.5 km north of Severn Bridge and follow it to Muskoka Road 19 or Biers Road.. Biers Road will eventually meet up with Muskoka Road 13, Kilworthy Road. The cemetery is approximately 5.5 km from Highway 11.