Burial records for the Hennessey Cemetery were, and are, kept on a window shade.

Those handwritten records were created on the shade by the late Ralph Cordry of Cordry & Son Funeral Home.

“It’s been the gospel for many, many years,” said Mayor Bert Gritz, owner of Cordry-Gritz Funeral Home.

He made the comment during the Mon., Dec. 9 meeting before the town board contracted with Omega Mapping Services to provide GPS digital mapping services and rosters of the cemetery.

The surveys and pinning for future interments were included in Forton, Ga. company’s $36,630 proposal.

The mapping will not include the Calvary (Catholic) Cemetery that connects to the south end of the Hennessey Cemetery because it is not owned by the town.

Town Administrator Tiffany Tillman said Omega “will use ground radiation radar to determine where people are buried.”

“And some in unmarked graves,” said Gritz.

Trustee Wes Hardin said many people are into genealogy and go to cemeteries to see where their great-great-grandparents are buried. He suggested that the burial lists be put on the town’s website.

Tillman said she has wanted to get this project done for a few years, and cemetery funds will pay for the work.

All members of the board voted in favor of the update: Vice Mayor Clif Vogt, Keith Meek, Richard Simunek, Hardin and Gritz.

Hajek Swaps Five Acres

The cemetery includes 14.5 acres, said Tillman, but that was before the board acquired 5 more acres that night from Scottie Hajek.

That land is north of the existing cemetery.

It had belonged to Hajek’s late grandparents, Joe and Helen Hajek, he told the Times & Free Press.

He agreed to a “swap” with the town after he’d discussed his proposal to the board in their closed session.

“My grandparents had always hated that they’d sold the mineral rights with the property to the town in 1953,” said Hajek, “so we made a trade: the fi ve acres for the town’s mineral rights on the rest of the property.”

He said the town hasn’t ever gotten any mineral income from the property.

“Four wells were drilled there and were all dry holes,” Hajek said.

He also said the exchange is mainly based on sentiment for his late grandparents. “The mineral rights are back in the family,” he said. “They would like that.”

Hajek, a 1979 HHS grad, was scheduled to go into town hall the next day to sign the paperwork. He is a Hennessey farmer/cattlman/businessman. He’s also known as one of the most knowledgable town historians.

Cemetery History and Trivia

Gritz said the cemetery was started in 1890 and those records were lost in a house fire in 1930.

He said the Guinness World Book of Records shows that one of the oldest twins is buried at the Hennessey Cemetery. He was Eli Phipps and died at the age of 108 years and nine days.

There is also a grave of a man who was killed by “claim jumpers” in the ’89 run, Gritz said. The story is that the man was a sheriff and went after the claim jumpers who killed him.

There is another nearby grave with the same last name of the sheriff. Gritz said he was told it was the sheriff’s son who went after the claim jumpers, and they also killed him.

Funeral Home History

W.L. Hamer started the Hennessey funeral home in 1904 or 05, Gritz said. Hamer later partnered with Walt Young. Then Young and Ralph Cordry’s father, Virgil, partnered in Cordry-Young Funeral Home in the 1920s. Virgil Cordry acquired full ownership in the late 1940s and called it Cordry & Son Funeral Home.

Ralph Cordry, who’d gone to mortuary school, directed his first funeral in 1934.

His father died two years later, and Ralph continued the Cordry & Son name and directed his last funeral in July 1993.

Ralph Cordry sold the funeral home to Eddie and Cathey Sisson in 1993 and Gritz purchased Cordry-Sisson Funeral Home in Dec. 1998 and renamed it Cordry-Gritz Funeral Home.