Badger cemeteries could become prairie

By Jeremiah Tucker, Sauk Prairie Eagle

Three area cemeteries that are part of the Badger Army Ammunition Plant may be restored to natural prairie if a new proposal is accepted.

For months now the town of Sumpter has refused to accept Pioneer, Thoelke and Miller cemeteries because of the cost of maintaining them — estimated by the town to be between $4,000 and $6,000 a year.

During Sumpter's regular board meeting Nov. 10, Mary Yaekel told the board's members that maintaining the cemeteries might not be a problem.

"Prairie planting doesn't need to be mowed and could be maintained by the surrounding owners," Yaekel said, referring to the Department of Natural Resources and the Ho-Chunk Nation.

Yaekel attended Sumpter's board meeting as a concerned citizen along with Badger Interim Oversight Management Commission members Bill Wenzel, Jr. and Virginia Metcalf.

Yaekel said the idea came to her one night after attending a Badger commission meeting where the General Service Administration mentioned the possibility of turning the cemeteries into commercial property — and possibly moving the bodies — if Sumpter couldn't claim them.

Metcalf said she was "appalled" by the suggestion.

"I couldn't sleep," Yaekel said. "I thought it had to be possible to keep it from becoming a commercial piece of land."

Yaekel said she did some research on the Internet.

"I discovered it's not unusual for pioneer cemeteries to be treated as prairie land," Yaekel said.

She said treating them as open prairie would be more in line with the type of cemeteries the people buried there knew.

Yaekel said she had contacted the Ho-Chunk Nation and the DNR, and that they would agree to care for the cemeteries if they were restored to prairie.

"It sounds like such a win-win situation for everybody," Yaekel said.

Sumpter Township Board President Brian Kindschi said, "We got to have a service contract."

He said once that's in place, the board could claim the cemeteries.

He said he thought the prairie vegetation should be low enough that people could see the headstones, but he didn't think the regular prairie fires would be hot enough to damage any of the graves.

Wenzel said he would put securing an agreement from the DNR and Ho-Chunk Nation for care of the cemeteries on the Badger commission's next agenda.