Woodring

I don't get angry often when I visit cemeteries but on Sunday November 29, 2009 I got very angry. I stopped at Woodring Cemetery along US 160 just 1 mile east of Elk City, Kansas. I had drove by this small rural cemetery a hundred times before and had always meant to stop and take some photos but had never had the time. Today I had the time and on this cold and gray November Sunday, I stopped.

As I entered this very small cemetery something became very obvious, it was, for the most part, a family cemetery. The family cemetery of a family known as "Woodring". As I made my way through this old cemetery it was not hard to see that it was very neglected. Stones were scattered, broken and missing.

In Kansas there are cemetery districts and each district is overseen by a cemetery board. These boards are responsible for the upkeep of the cemeteries in their districts. The cemetery boards are answerable to the county Commisioner's.

The cemetery board for Woodring has apparently done as little as possible to keep it maintained. They have let the grass get long before mowing and then they have bush hogged it down, covering the fallen stones in large clumps of grass. Along the east, north and west side of the cemetery there is a hand stacked rock wall. It is in a poor state of repair and it looks as though the cemeteries neighbors have been helping themselves to rock from the wall.

The over all condition of the cemetery already had me angry enough to go and have a talk with our county clerk but then, while researching the cemeteries history I came across the following article from www.absoluteastronomy.com

Was a U.S. United States political figure. He was born in 1890 in Elk City, Kansas. He was educated in city and county schools and at sixteen began work as a janitor in the First National Bank of Neodesha, Kansas. He briefly attended business college, which gained him employment as a bookkeeper and assistant cashier of the First National Bank in Elk City. He soon became assistant cashier at the First National Bank of Neodesha. Woodring moved up quickly to become vice president and owner of the bank until he enlisted as a private in the US military; later commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Tank Corps in World War I. He was elected department commander of the American Legion in Kansas then in 1928 he sold his banking business to enter politics. He served as Governor Kansas from 1931 to 1933. He then married Helen Coolidge and served as Assistant Secretary of War from 1933 to 1936, with supervision over procurement matters. He was promoted and served as Secretary of War under President Franklin Roosevelt from 1936 to 1940. He projected the recommendations of his predecessor for increasing the strength of the Regular Army, National Guard, and the Reserve Corps. During his tenure he directed a revision of mobilization plans to bring personnel and procurement into balance and stressed the need to perfect the initial (peacetime) protective force. An isolationist, he was asked to resign in 1940 after disagreeing publicly with the administration's policy of shipping war materials to Britain. Woodring ran unsuccessfully for Governor of Kansas in 1946, and for the Democratic Party nomination for that post in 1956. He died following a stroke in Topeka, Kansas on September 9, 1967. He is buried at the Mount Hope Cemetery in Topeka, Kansas. Woodring was the son in law of Massachusetts Senator Marcus A. Coolidge a relative of President Calvin Coolidge.

So, not only was this a neglected cemetery but it was a neglected cemetery that held the remains of the family of a historical figure in US and Kansas history. Now I was really angry.

We strive to control the direction our lives take but none of us can control our death. What we can control of death is how we honor our dead. The dead are not being honored at the Woodring Cemetery and it is time to address this situation. Harry Hines Woodring honored his family name by accomplishing great things in his life. Now his family lies forgotten and neglected. I will pursue this and strive to correct this sad situation.

Sometimes you just have to step forward and advocate for those who can no longer advocate for themselves.