Incoming eighth grade students at St. Francis of Assisi school have found a unique way to spend their summer during the coronavirus pandemic.

Eastern Cemetery, off Baxter Avenue near the Highlands, had been in shambles for nearly 20 years. It wasn’t until a bunch of dedicated volunteers, known as the Friends of Eastern Cemetery, began cleaning up the neglected grounds in 2012.

Students who attend the school get involved with service projects that help them proclaim, explore and dignify life.

“With COVID this year, we knew it would be a challenge. It’s a deep irony that we were actually able to achieve the same goal in the cemetery,” teacher Fred Whittaker said.

Many of the students helped give many of the neglected graves some dignity. It wasn’t until students began going to different areas of the cemetery, they came across a unique section.

“My friends and I came upon a different spot which wound up to be the baby land or the place where most of the babies in Eastern Cemetery were buried,” student Mary Shea Ballentine, said. “We had heard there was a section in Eastern Cemetery where babies were buried but we weren’t exactly sure where.

As students kept digging around, they uncovered temporary grave markers where babies had been buried.

“We just kept kinda stabbing at the ground and we would hit something and find one,” student Claire Midland.

Whittaker said the students were able to find the first one because they were digging up dandelions and heard the metal clinking as they dug. He said the disbelief of hearing “I think I’ve discovered a person” is a quote you don’t hear very often.

The students’ work in the cemetery led to the uncovering of 24 grave markers.

However, on the graves that had headstones, it did bring a sense of sadness.

“Seeing all these graves with like lambs and teddy bears on them it’s really sad because they’re all babies and a lot of them died the same day they were born,” Claire said.

Brody Peters added, “These young ones they got forgotten – they had a life to live but they didn’t get to live it and their families can remember them after we uncover them.”

Now that some of the areas where the babies are buried has been cleaned, Whittaker said the sun now shines on them.

“Anyone who comes by now can remember them. Anyone who comes by can hold them in their heart. Anyone who comes by now can pray for them,” he said.

The students hope to partner with a granite company to provide headstones to replace the temporary grave markers and have begun seeking information about the families of the babies buried in Eastern Cemetery.

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