BALTIMORE — Burying a family member and years later returning to their grave site only to find the cemetery is a mess and hundreds of graves have been left unmarked has been disheartening for some West Baltimore residents.
Jennifer Johnson, founder of Friends of St. Peters Cemetery has been working to restore the African-American portion of a once forgotten cemetery.
"I asked my mother a very important question. If you could have anything you wanted in life, what would it be? Her answer was to find her mother's grave," said Johnson.
Jennifer and her mother Sandy came to St. Peters Cemetery last year. The lack of upkeep left them in disbelief.
"I'd come up here in my boots all the time because I can't walk in regular shoes up here. But the overgrowth was up about my waist. It was bad," said Johnson.
From then on, Jennifer worked to restore the cemetery to find her grandmothers grave. The hope is that she'd make her mothers wish come true.
"That process has taken us through various ups and downs, but one thing that's been a total blessing that we found, is that we have nine loved ones buried out here," said Johnson.
She didn't do it alone. In addition to applying for the Trader Foundation Grant, she reached out to Dana Kollman, a forensic science professor at Towson University who jumped at the opportunity to help.
"When I initially came out, I think seeing the disparity between the Irish section action and the African-American section, just jumped right out at me there. There's a few graves that are marked here but we know that there are burials here," said Kollman.
Dana and her students put in many hours through ground penetrating radar work to help uncover these graves.
"Every foot or every 25 centimeters roughly, we put a transact, and we run a line of radar. Ultimately what that is doing is, it's sending a signal down into the earth and if that signal is interrupted, then the response time is shorter and so we can go back, and we can map out all of those anomalies, and hopefully in this case, we're going to see a lot of rectangles, which would be indicative of graves," said Kollman.
This work will help give back voices to a marginalized group according to Kollman.
"It's fulfilling and it's worth it. Frankly, it should be done. It shouldn't be a feel-good project to come out here. We are stewards of history. We should be doing this," said Kollman.
Johnson believes anywhere from 400 to 1,500 African-Americans are left unmarked.
She continues to search for her grandmothers exact location despite the barriers that come her way.
"You keep pushing, you pray, and and every step forward you take you may have to take one step back, but I would say it's been many many blessings that have been shared with me," said Johnson.
Nearly 15 more acres need to be cleared out to finish this project.
Johnson says she will continue to apply for more grant money to preserve African-American history.