Rotarian Rosa Lavender presented the program last Wednesday on the Tivy Mountain Cemetery, which was a historically black cemetery established in 1903. It was the final resting place for numerous residents in Kerrville, including a number of tuberculosis patients from the local Sanatorium.
Rosa was a teacher at Tivy high school in the mid seventies when she proposed a class project to clean up and document the cemetery as part of the country’s Bicentennial Celebration. A number of students spent weekends during the year working on the project, and local community members provided information on grave locations and persons buried there.
Once the student’s work was complete, they asked the Kerrville city council if the city could maintain it, but were told it was not in the city limits so no help could be offered. The county was also asked to maintain it but declined to help.
The cemetery fell into disrepair over the years until recently, when it was determined that it was indeed owned by the city. Mayor Joe Herring and City Manager Dalton Rice visited the location and subsequently got the city parks department to clean it up.
The long term solution is to create a Tivy Mountain Cemetery association with a board of trustees, create a 501(c)3 in order to solicit tax deductible donations, provide a new gate and fence with signage, apply for a historical marker and have regular maintenance funded with donations.
