Balancing The Needs Of The Living With The Needs Of History

John writes:

Hi Marc,

I was reading the Socorro news on topix and came across a reference to this mostly forgotten graveyard in Socorro. From the sounds of it there were still some headstones there in the 1970's. It brings up an interesting dilemma: what do we do with old graveyards where there are few or no living people who remember the people buried there or even the names of those people. It probably would not be a big news story if there were not Confederate soldiers there; the nostalgia of the Old South and honoring of the Confederate dead is still quite strong I think. Personally, I can understand the frustrations of the landowner. She cannot sell the property but nobody has the money to prove what is really threre. And with New Mexico's 400 year history of European settlement and thousands of years of Native American settlement prior to that one would assume that this will continue to be an issue in many places there.

Here is the link:

SOCORRO — Mary Silva's vacant lot — a rocky patch of land as nondescript as any in this hardscrabble neighborhood of modest houses, ramshackle mobile homes and abandoned trailers — is among the few valuable possessions she hopes to leave to her nine children.

But Ken Garrison, a Civil War buff and officer with the New Mexico Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, said Silva's lot, which likely holds hundreds of human remains in a long-abandoned cemetery, should instead be restored in honor of 27 Confederate soldiers believed to be among the unmarked graves.

In keeping with the organization's mission of preserving the history and legacy of the Confederate soldiers, Garrison said if the abandoned cemetery can't be preserved, the soldiers' remains should be exhumed and reburied "in a respectable location."

State law makes it nearly impossible for Silva or her eventual heirs to do anything with the land, officially designated as an "unmarked burial ground," or for Garrison to realize his dream of relocating the Confederate graves.

For such a small lot on Socorro's west side, Mary Silva's legacy is kicking up a lot of dust.