Walling Citizens Working To Restore Local Cemetery

Walling residents coming together to clean up a local cemetery after discovering their ancestors buried there.

Resident Dale Sims and his wife recently began cleaning and maintaining the Walling-Randals Cemetery after they learned his wife’s fourth great-grandparents were buried there. Sims said other people with ancestors in the cemetery have since come alongside them to help with the project.

“It’s got those old tent graves on it, the, where the, you know what I’m saying?” Sims said. “Where it’s got two pieces of rock that lean against each other, and then there’s a headstone at the end of it that has the person’s name on it. And it’s a, anyway, we’re working. A lot of them are, are sort of broken down and are out of place and we’re putting them back in place.”

Sims said they started by improving the site through weed eating, mowing, and cutting down brush and small trees before they could address the actual graves. He said they are still searching for other descendants who might be interested in helping with the restoration.

“James and Phoebe Walling, that is the name of the two gravestones that are, who are like the, all these people’s ancestors, and we’re just trying to get as many people that are kin to them as we can interested in it, and hopefully, you know, hopefully it’ll develop into where somebody keeps it mowed and cleaned,” Sims said.

Sims said he believes that Walling itself was named after the family in this cemetery.

“I’m sure that’s the way it was,” Sims said. “I don’t have the paperwork that says that, but I’m sure.”