04-04-2025
Local woman plans markers for unmarked veteran graves
RAVENNA, Ohio (WJW) — While researching gravesites at the Maple Grove Cemetery in Ravenna, Christine Untrauer said she stumbled on the photo of 21-year-old Willie Ross Dennis.
In the photo, she found he was dressed in a military uniform and soon realized he died while serving his country in South Vietnam in January 1968.
'He was a young man when he went off to war. He was in Vietnam for just a month when he died,' she said.
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For nearly 57 years, Dennis had been laid to rest in an unmarked grave at the cemetery near the unmarked graves of his parents and his brothers.
'Back when he passed, they didn't automatically put markers on graves — even the ones that died in action. They didn't put a marker on their grave because [the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs] didn't do that at that point. If you were in a military cemetery, you received a marker, but not in a private cemetery and this is considered as private,' said Untrauer, who made it her mission to see that Dennis' sacrifice was properly honored.
Untrauer prepared the necessary documents to get a Veterans Affairs grave marker for Dennis and raise the money needed to have the marker placed.
'I didn't know him, but it's the emotion of finally realizing he won't be forgotten,' she told FOX 8 News.
Since then, she has realized that there are at least 49 other veterans whose resting places are unmarked in the same cemetery.
'I have one from the War of 1812, not marked; Revolutionary War; a number from [the] Civil War and the War of 1812. I have a trumpeter who died, and he didn't die while he was serving, but he died after — and I think that was so touching. He was a trumpeter, so he was out front leading them,' said Untrauer.
They include at least four who are among more than 130 people buried in an area of the cemetery known as the 'potter's field.'
Laid to rest there over generations are the remains of people who died while passing through the area on trains and others who did not have the means for a formal burial.
Some were laid to rest possibly just wrapped in burlap.
Untrauer said while it may be impossible to determine the exact resting place for each of the veterans in the potter's field, it it still important for them to have markers to remember their sacrifice.
Her effort, however, is not focused just on Maple Grove Cemetery.
Untrauer has created what she calls the Veterans Marker Project, hoping to do the same at all 29 cemeteries in Portage County.
With the appropriate paperwork, Veterans Affairs will provide the markers at no cost — but there is a fee to have them installed.
'Cemeteries charge an installation for veterans' markers. Some do, some don't, but when they do, I don't want the families to pay for those. I don't want them to sit in a building and wait until somebody comes to pay for them, and so that is where this came from,' said Untrauer.
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She has partnered with Elks Lodge No. 1076 to create a fund from which 100% of all contributions will go toward installation of the markers.
An earlier fundraiser generated enough money to help install more than 40 markers, two more of which have already been delivered to Maple Grove Cemetery.
On May 3, the lodge will host a second fundraiser in which Untrauer hopes to be able to raise enough money to install dozens more, eventually hoping to take her project to cemeteries across the country.
She is also sharing her email address, as a contact for anyone unable to attend who wishes to make a contribution
'The main reason for this is the fact that they died for our country. They served our country, they signed a blank check for our country. And if we owe them nothing more, we owe them a debt of gratitude, and to mark their final resting place so they will be remembered forever,' said Untrauer.
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