Friends of Jacksonville's Historic Cemetery
OUR REPORT CARD FOR 2025
WHILE WE LOOK AHEAD TO 2026, TAKE A MOMENT AND LOOK BACK AT OUR
ACCOMPLISHMENTS IN 2025
Our dedicated and loyal volunteers once again managed to do an amazing job of supporting the goals of our non-profit organization in caring for the cemetery. In total they contributed 730 hours of labor for activities where volunteer hours are recorded!
Grounds and Cemetery Maintenance - Thanks to our volunteers, those from other organizations, and the community-at-large, we were able to host three successful Community Clean-up Days on March 22nd, May 3rd and October 25th, 2025 (turnout was limited on October 25th due to bad weather).
A total of 119 hours were contributed by the 51 volunteers who attended these events.
Our Adopt-A-Block program, launched in March 2021, has continued to be a great success with neaarly 200 volunteers signed on and regularly caring for their adopted cemetery blocks. They have contributed hundreds upon hundreds of hours in the process, and the cemetery grounds have never looked better! Volunteers in this program work at their own pace, when and as often as they choose, with no pressure of being in the cemetery on a certain day or time or having to keep track of their hours. Our goal has been to keep the program as simple and attractive as possible. Therefore, none of the time contributed by volunteers in the Adopt-A-Block program is reflected or included in the total number of hours noted above or below.
Additional time was spent on General Cemetery Maintenance, caring for the grounds in areas not adopted by individuals, cleaning and maintaining the Interpretive Panels, the Interpretive Center, the Cemetery Map and Pavilion, as well as restocking cemetery brochures, cleaning and restocking the Volunteer Tool Room, and organizing, publicizing and administering our various FOJHC programs and events. A group of volunteers also placed over 400 flags at veterans' gravesites for Memorial Day and removed them following Veterans Day. Approximately 415 hours of volunteer time went into helping to care for the cemetery grounds through the activities noted above,
Note: Please check our Events Page for 2026 Community Clean-up dates and details.
Marker Restoration - While 2025 was a year of transition for our marker restoration team, several smaller restoration projects were completed which provided opportunities for knowledge and skill transfer on a manageable basis.
The first restoration was to the headstone of Bertha Beatrice Breitbarth (City 194, 10) which had fallen for unknown reasons and broken into two pieces. Beatrice, who died of smallpox in 1869 at the age of two years, was the first child of Henry and Julia Ann Hopwood Breitbarth and a niece of Elizabeth Hopwood Ross and her husband, noted Jacksonville pioneer John England Ross. After repairing the headstone, the Friends restoration team completed the process by leveling the base and resetting the stone.
Two additional markers that had been undermined by ground squirrels were leveled, and a loose third marker was re-attached to its base.
A total of 14 hours of volunteer time was directed to restoration work in the cemetery.
Note: If you would be interested in learning about and helping with this type of volunteer work, please contact us at: info@friendsjvillecemetery.org.
Marker Cleaning Workshops- We once again hosted five workshops in 2025. Our volunteers cleaned 148 headstones and monuments, while contributing 135 hours in volunteer labor. Since these workshops began in 2013, volunteers have cleaned 1,756 markers and contributed 2,164 volunteer hours - a very impressive endeavor, and one appreciated even more-so as you walk the cemetery grounds.
Note: Be sure to check our Events Page for Workshop dates for 2026.
Honoring our Veterans - Each year the Friends of Jacksonville's Historic Cemetery purchase flags to be placed on each grave site of the Veterans who rest within our cemetery. Volunteers place the flags just before Memorial Day and then remove them in November following Veterans Day. There are over 400 Veterans resting within the cemetery grounds.
Volunteer hours are included under General Cemetery Maintenance.
History Events and Tours – We again offered our popular History Saturday in the Cemeteryprograms in 2025, this time on five second Saturday mornings from May through September. Volunteers and docents logged 46 hours of volunteer time in presenting these programs to nearly 250 guests.
Additional Projects in 2025
Story Boards– Four additional Story Boards, created by our volunteers in 2024, were attached to metal stanchions and installed in 2025 at the gravesites of William Pernoll (Improved Order of Red Men 8), Henry Wendt (Independent Order of Red Men 19), Thomas Chavner (Catholic C8), and Gustav Karewski (Jewish 12) bringing to seventeen the number of Story Boards installed throughout the cemetery. Each provides a brief history of the individual and/or family buried in the block, and most include an historical photograph.
In addition, a Pioneer Stories section was added to the Friends website during 2025 so that the information contained in our seventeen Story Boards can also be viewed by those unable to tour the Jacksonville Historic Cemetery in person.
Volunteer hours are included under General Cemetery Maintenance.