$30,000 SOUGHT FOR PERPETUAL CARE OF CONFEDERATE GRAVES

Richmond Times-Dispatch, September 7, 1929

Governor Harry F. Byrd will be requested to include in the next budget the sum of $30,000 for putting the 16,000 or more Confederate graves in Oakwood Cemetery in perpetual care, it was decided last night at the called meeting of the Oakwood Memorial Association. The Oakwood Improvement Association in a separate meeting endorsed the movement originating in the other body.

Mrs. C.W. Massie, president of the Oakwood Memorial Association presided at the called meeting. The resolution adopted is as follows:

"Resolved by the Oakwood Memorial Association. That we most respectfully request His Excellency Hon. Harry F. Byrd to place the sum of $30,000 in the budget for the perpetual care of the Confederate plots in Oakwood Cemetery of Richmond, Va., that contain the bodies of 16,000 and more Confederate soldiers who were buried in said cemetery during the War Between the States. We feel that the State is now able to do this work and earnestly request our Governor to place it in the budget of 1930."

Elben C. Folkes, president of the Oakwood Cemetery Improvement Association, placed the paper before his organization and asked for its endorsement. He said that Oakwood Cemetery is the largest single burying place for Confederate dead in the country and that unless this generation succeeded in getting the graves cared for, they would be neglected forever.

The Department of Public Works has estimated that the graves can be put in perpetual care for $2,000 a year. If the regular rate of 50 cents a square foot was charged, the sum necessary to put the seven and a half acres in perpetual care would be $160,000.

The State, it was pointed out last night, twenty years ago put the Confederate section of Hollywood Cemetery in perpetual care. That plot, however, is considerably smaller than the Oakwood plot.

Of the more than 16,000 Confederate dead in Oakwood, more than half are unknown.

The Oakwood Memorial Association was the first in the country to hold a regular memorial day. The custom was started in 1866 of observing May 10, the date of General "Stonewall" Jackson's death, as memorial day and it has been continued since without interruption.

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