Hennessey Mayor Bert Gritz, who is also the owner of Cordry-Gritz Funeral Home, said he didn’t know the exact date when the Hennessey Cemetery became town property.

But apparently the Hennessey Village did in 1913, he said, and sent along the document pictured.

Gritz said he’d thought the Hennessey Cemetery Board acted as a beautification-type organization after the town was incorporated in June 1890.

He said the oldest grave he’s been able to confirm is “a child age seven months and seven days. She died Jan. 25, 1890.”

Interesting burials

Sam Walton’s maternal grandparents are buried in Hennessey, he said, when asked if anyone famous was buried there.

The parents of Nancy Walton were Reuben Lawrence, 1854-1927, and Mary Edna Barclay Lawrence, 1856-1936.

“Sam’s aunt was also buried in the Hennessey cemetery, and we think Sam may have been a pallbearer,” Gritz said.

“There are some other interesting burials there,” he said.

Such as, John A. Liddle (Sept. 26, 1864-Sept. 23, 1893) and William R. Liddle May 4, 1836-Sept. 23, 1893.

“John A. Liddle was murdered by ‘Claim Jumpers’ in the Cherokee Strip Land Run,” Gritz wrote in an email. “And William R. Liddle was the local sheriff at the time, and went after the men who murdered his nephew, John. He caught up with the claim jumpers and they murdered him too, on the same day.”

Taylor Combs started cemetery

Resident Hennessey historian Scott Hajek was contacted and sent this text: “Taylor Combs started the cemetery on his farm at the south end (of the cemetery) and it was later expanded when the town bought more land from Ralph Huntsberger.”

Hajek said his grandparents, the late Joe and Helen (Gabriel) Hajek, gave the town five acres for the cemetery in 1953.

Grandson Scotty gave the town another five acres of his farmland for the cemetery about a year ago.

Hennessey’s Public Library online research site with pages from five Hennessey papers published during the 1890s were helpful, and Hajek was right about Mr. Combs.

Taylor Combs started the cemetery, but an exact start of the cemetery was not found on newspaper pages from the issues of these newspapers: The Hennessey Clipper, Hennessey Press-Democrat, Hennessey Eagle, Hennessey Kicker, and Kiel Press. All those newspapers are on the library’s research site.

However, Hajek was also right when he said Taylor Combs put ads in The Clipper for “people to come by his house and pay him, and not to bury them in the road.”

Ads similar to that appeared in The Clipper and other Hennessey papers in March 1894:

City Cemetery: Taylor Combs gives notice that the lots in the Hennessey Cemetery must be paid for when used and anyone wishing to purchase lots in the Cemetery to call on him at his house one-fourth mile south of the Cemetery. Mr. Combs gives further notice that the people must keep in the driveways, or streets that are laid out in the ground reserved for graves, when they have their teams inside of the Cemetery.”

Huntsberger then owned the property

“Ralph” Huntsberger’s name didn’t pop up on the library’s research site until 1927, but there was a letter to the editor titled “Misrepresented” by his father, W.H. “Will” Huntsberger, in March 23, 1911.

In that letter, Will Huntsberger referred to a story published the week before “by the secretary” of the cemetery association that accused him that “I have trespassed upon the Hennessey cemetery by placing a fence through it, which is without foundation, and a gross misrepresentation of the fact.”

He wrote that the “records will bear me out. In an early day before there was any cemetery at Hennessey there were a few deaths and Wm. Frank – who had the quarter section which I now own, the one north of here the Hennessey cemetery now stands – allowed them to bury on the corner of his farm.

“But in the course of a year, or two, Taylor Combs, on the place south platted out a cemetery and there was no more burials on the Frank place, except those that had relatives buried there...Last summer the parties who had friends buried on the little corner of my farm, allowed the fence to get in bad shape and the Hennessey Cemetery Association was after me about stock getting in the cemetery, so I put a fence between my farm and the cemetery about a foot over on my own land, which the records at Kingfisher will bear me out.”

He wrote that since the story also said the association was in need of legal advice, “it might be well for them to find out whether there isn’t a law against malicious slander.”

“A Correction” appeared in the April 6, 1911, issue signed by Cemetery Association officers/members Mrs. M.C. Parks (president), John Leddy and I.J. Cashion, but not by the secretary who’d recorded minutes of the meeting, Mrs. Fred Ehler.

She “retired” as secretary in July, 1911. Note: Her minutes published of that meeting said, “The president appointed a committee to see after this matter.” Those committee members were Leddy and Cashion.

1898-1910 Cemetery Association meetings

A meeting of the “Ladies’ Cemetery Association” was called by Mrs. J. H. Crider, president, on Jan. 5 and published in a Dec. 24, 1898, newspaper. It was to be held at the Opera House “to elect officers and to transact other business of importance,” and was signed by Mrs. J.H. Hardy, secretary. Note: It’s unclear from the stories if this was in Hennessey or Dover. Or, the Lyon Valley Cemetery Association that was formed in January, 1899.

A meeting notice in a Feb. 1900 newspaper showed there would be a meeting for all members of the Hennessey Cemetery Association for “business of importance at the home of Mrs. Chas. Binder.”

July 28, 1910 story said the Cemetery Association “has been quite busy for the past month trying to raise money to clean the cemetery, build about 1,300 feet of fence and purchase one acre of land of Will Huntsberger for an addition to the cemetery.”

The purchase price was $150, and they paid him half that amount with the rest to come later.

That group had several ice cream and drink socials, and musicals, to raise money for the cemetery.

Will’s name came up in June, 1912, when he and other property owners went to a Kingfisher County Equalization Board meeting and complained that their land was assessed at $100 to $1,000 more than they’d offered to sell their land. Others who went from “Hennessey and vicinity” were Thomas Staggs, Andy Unmark, Frank Shimanek, G.I.K. Crawford, Bud Rogers, J.J. Brown, Lyman Hobbs, George Dauner and “Mr.” Wilson.

1927 Catholic (Calvary) Cemetery

Sept. 1927 Clipper: “The Catholic congregation of this place under the leadership of Father Sinkmajor have recently purchased three acres of land of Taylor Combs, adjoining the Hennessey Cemetery on the south, a cost of $300 for a Catholic Cemetery. They have enclosed it with a neat woven wire fence and it has been planted into lots and streets by Frank Noll.”

1932-72 Hennessey Cemetery Association

There were several fund-raisers by the association in the early 1930s to raise money to continue care for the cemetery.

A resolution to “provide perpetual upkeep for the cemetery” was made in June 1932 at the association’s meeting at F& M Bank.

That resolution priced cemetery lots at $75 each. “Fifty dollars of the purchase prices is to be loaned at four percent interest to provide funds for upkeep.

Lot owners desiring to take advantage of the new plan may do so, it was indicated, by paying $50 per lot into the association treasury.”

Geo. R. Holmes was president of the association in May, 1937, and made notice of a meeting, but no story about that meeting was found.

The next on-line finding about the cemetery association was the annual meeting set for June 7, 1972, with W. C. Titterington, president. Apparently, he died later that year, or early the next, according to published legal notices about his estate.

1973-?

Until more information is available, it’s unknown when a one-time Hennessey Cemetery Board was named, possibly in the 1980s.

It is recalled by some that three men made up that board in the 1980s, or earlier: Ralph Cordry, then owner of Cordry & Son Funeral Home; Bob Lovell, local attorney and the town board’s attorney until he was elected associate district judge and couldn’t be the board’s attorney, and the current mayor, whomever it was that year.

2015

In January, 2015, Hennessey’s elected town board members voted to raise burial plots from $200 to $300. However, the new price didn’t go into effect until July 1, 2015.

Bert Gritz, then-and-now Mayor, told the board they were running out of space, needed to buy more land, and maintenance costs continued to grow when the $200 rate had been in effect since the early 1980s.

Gritz, who’d owned Cordry-Gritz Funeral since late 1998, told the board back in 2015 he knew they’d have a run on the lots, but thought people should be notified.

He’d also said that they had many lots purchased in the 1930s that had not been used, but he had no way to contact the owners.

He estimated in 2015 that they had about 12-15 years use of their current property.

Then about a year ago Scott Hajek gave the town five adjoining acres north of the town’s cemetery.

Family cemeteries

In answer to a question about family cemeteries, Gritz told the board back in 2015 that he’d been asked if someone could be buried on their farm.

He said they could, “but the state requires that the land be set aside, and requires perpetual care, and that land can never be sold.”

There were also comments from the audience at that meeting:

Jean Anne Casey suggested for the town to build a covered area at the cemetery so that graveside, or cremation services, could be held there. Then Richard Simunek said due to space back east that they have Columbariums (buildings that hold many cremated remains).

2022

Members of the current town board are: Mayor Bert Gritz, Vice Mayor Clif Vogt, Trustees Richard Simunek and Harold Shaw, and recently-elected Trustee David Jones. All attended the 2022 planning session Sat., Feb. 5.

Hennessey area cemeteries

The Hennessey and Calvary (Catholic) cemeteries are located one-half mile west on SH 51 at US 81, then one-fourth mile north on Cemetery Rd.

Note: Other cemeteries in the Hennessey area are: Lyon Valley-Union Chapel, Oak Grove, Sheridan, Lacey, Maple Grove, Hope, Cimarron Valley, Morrison, Parvin, Wilhite (Witholt), Jack Moore, Evans-Burns, Wannamaker, Jack Alston (Small Oak Grove). Others are: Hobbs Ranch, Oak Vale, and Venable. Dover cemeteries are: Dover, Banner, New Home and Emmanuel Baptist.

Online information

Directions to most of those were published in the May 24, 2012 issue of The Hennessey Clipper. Papers available at Hennessey Public Library’s website. Click on research. Richard Simunek made the library’s digital version of those