Eagle Scout leads restoration project at Woodlawn Cemetery in Bronx
BROOKLYN, N.Y. (PIX11) – A group of dedicated volunteers spent a day in November breathing new life into a long-neglected section of the historic Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx.
Their efforts not only brought attention to forgotten graves but also honored the memory of a sailor whose story had nearly faded from history.
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Eagle Scout James Dibra, from Bronx Troop No. 102, led a team of 30 volunteers in November to restore Lot No.3 of Woodlawn Cemetery. The group worked tirelessly, lifting fallen stones, resetting memorials, and cleaning historic markers.
'So this stone here took us about 45 minutes to do because of how large it is,' Dibra explained, describing the effort involved in restoring one of the cemetery's oldest grave markers. Despite the daunting task, Dibra said, 'We'd be refurbishing and resetting some of their older stones. And it was a lot of fun that day.'
Thanks to the strong turnout, what seemed like a project that could have taken days was completed in just seven hours.
'Well, I thought it was gonna take a lot longer than just a day, but because we had so many people turn out, we got it all done in like seven hours,' Dibra said.
One of the project's most meaningful parts was restoring the grave of Ah Sam, a Chinese sailor and cook aboard the ill-fated U.S.S. Jeannette, a Navy Arctic exploration vessel lost in 1881. For more than a century, Ah Sam's grave had remained unmarked and separate from the rest of the crew.
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Susan Olsen, Historical Services Director at Woodlawn Cemetery Conservancy, explained, 'So we decided we really needed to dig into this, and James was excited about cleaning up a lot.'
The discovery of Ah Sam's separate burial raised questions. 'Somebody came and said, why isn't the cook buried with the crew? And so we initially thought it was an issue of segregation where Woodlawn's never segregated because Ah Sam was placed in a single grave lot,' Olsen said.
While most of the U.S.S. Jeannette's crew were buried together in a group plot, Ah Sam's grave stood alone and unmarked until Dibra and his team helped restore and properly mark it.
As Woodlawn Cemetery prepares for its annual 'Flags for Every Hero' event, which honors nearly 9,000 veterans, Dibra reflected on his motivation for the project.
'Helping out the veterans is something that I really like because I feel very honored by the stuff that they do, stuff that they did do for us. Helping this guy get his proper burial was something that I wanted to help him out with,' Dibra said.
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