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Work Crew Trashes Old Cemetery On Track Site

By Paul Carlton
Night News Editor

Distraught family members discovered their relatives' graves in a shambles this past weekend, reportedly dug up Friday by an Indiana-based subcontractor working on the site of the new superspeedway.
According to Wilson County Sheriff Terry Ashe, a neighbor noticed that the wrought iron fence surrounding the Drennan family cemetery torn down and large headstones knocked over. Additionally, a burial vault, with a nearby headstone noting the date of 1953, had been ripped up.
Ashe stated that he is most upset because the occurrence was not reported to his office and had to be discovered by neighbors and family members. Deputies have been stationed at the site to guard against the curious, Ashe pointed out. He added that his big worry is the predicted rain. "If it rains," Ashe said, "it's gonna be an even bigger mess." A family member, Eula Mae McDaniel, added that "we're really upset about it."
Dover Downs representatives acknowledged that the cemetery is on land purchased for the superspeedway and stressed that they will "make it right." David Brooks of Ligon and Bobo Funeral Home, which handled some of the original burials at the site, noted that disenterments from family cemeteries for roads and such are common. Such movements require family permission and state permits.
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Can you believe this? It's like something out of a bad movie. I'll keep you posted. And I'll try to find a mailing address for those who want to write Dover Downs a letter.

Also, consider writing a Letter to the Editor of the Lebanon Democrat and The Tennessean.

Letters to the Editor of The Democrat may be mailed to:

The Lebanon Democrat
402 North Cumberland St.
Lebanon, TN 37087
attn: Sam Hatcher

The Tennessean will accept Letters to the Editor via email at:
letters@tennessean.com
and
editor@tennessean.com

Their mailing address is:

The Tennessean newsroom
1100 Broadway
Nashville, Tenn. 37203
attn: Frank Sutherland

Greg
mailto: greg.tomerlin@nashville.com

The Wilson County TN ONLINE Genealogical Society
Home of The Wilson County Genealogy Depot
http://www.rootsweb.com/~tnwcogs/

http://www.rootsweb.com/~tnwcogs/index.html

We should press foward to find and mark/record the old graveyards before they wind up under a Wal-Mart or a racetrack.

I have kin buried in the Drennan Cemetery. I cannot believe that someone is so uncaring as to commit this profane act. They have shown their comtempt, their disrespect for the consecrated ground in which our ancestors lie. I'm sure they would be highly upset if someone did the same to the graves of their folks. The man that ordered this sacrilege must be proud of himself.

Wade Drennan
Email: wade@chickasaw.com

Send your emails to:

Senator Robert Rochelle---
sen.robert.rochelle@legislature.state.tn.us

Representative Mae Beavers---
rep.mae.beavers@legislature.state.tn.us

Representative Stratton Bone---
rep.stratton.bone@legislature.state.tn.us

Thank you.

Wade Drennan

Here are the email addresses Wade sent. They were correct in his email, but the links were messed up. These should work.

Senator Robert Rochelle sen.robert.rochelle@legislature.state.tn.us

Representative Mae Beavers rep.mae.beavers@legislature.state.tn.us

Representative Stratton Bone rep.stratton.bone@legislature.state.tn.us

Greg

I am sure by now that most of us know about the damage done to the Drennan Cemetery in Wilson Co. Tn. I wrote Sen. Rochelle, Rep. Beavers and Rep. Bone about this problem. As of this time I have only heard back from Rep. Stratton Bone. His email to me is as follows:

"Subject: Re: Wilson Co. Tn.  Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1999 11:03:23 -0500
From: Stratton Bone<rep.stratton.bone@legislature.state.tn.us>
To: "'Wade Drennan"'<wade@chickasaw.com>

Thank you for your email. I am very sorry for those families affected by the incident at the site of the new speedway. There is already a law on the books which covers this type of incident.

Tennessee Code Annotated 39-17-311 reads as follows:

39-17-311. Desecration of a venerated object.
(a) A person commits an offense who intentionally desecrates:
(1) A place of worship or burial; or
(2) A state or national flag.
(b) A violation of this section is a Class A misdemeanor.

Obviously, the keyword here is "intentionally". It is my understanding that the District Attorney General, working with the sheriff, is currently considering whether to file charges.

Thanks again for your email."

As I said I have not heard from Sen. Rochelle or Rep. Beavers.
Wade Drennan

Dear Senator Rochelle:
(with copy to Rep. Beavers and Rep. Bone)

I was deeply distressed about the article in THE LEBANON DEMOCRAT on Monday, Sept. 20, 1999, concerning the destruction of the Drennan Cemetery by workers. The cemetery was "reportedly dug up Friday by an Indiana-based subcontractor working on the site of the new superspeedway".

The ancestors of a good friend, Wade Drennan, are buried in this cemetery. These folk are also distantly related to my husband's family in Wilson County, and as I continually search for genealogy and family history links in that county, I have found a close relationship between the ancestors of our families in Wilson County.

We need to have enough respect for both the dead and the living, that we will always make sure our cemeteries and burial places are protected from harm against ANY danger, but particularly from encroaching development, as this particular danger can certainly be forecast.

For example, ANY time a property is sold which contains or is even nearby a cemetery or burial place, there should be proper safeguards in place that will give protection to that portion of the property from vandalism or wanton destruction.

Our laws, or the lack of them thereof, by the State of Tennessee, seems to give or at least ALLOW a blanket permission to developers to destroy our ancestor's graves "in the name of so-called progress".

I have placed the information about the destruction of the Drennan Cemetery onto a web page called ENDANGERED CEMETERIES IN TN #2 and you can find it at:

http://members.aol.com/genny1/cemet3.html (this page)

Mr. Wade Drennan of Oklahoma and I are both part of a large group of people who are actively researching their Wilson County ancestors. Wade had contacted me earlier this year to find out exactly where his ancestors were buried in Wilson County so he could make a trip to Tennessee to document the graves. I was able to get information for him about the graveyard, but the destruction of his ancestor's grave has occurred prior to his visit here.

This has happened too many times to be 'shrugged off' by concerned citizens....

I would suggest a task force be appointed, by the Governor, to oversee the proper protection and care of our ancestor's final resting places before there are NONE of the older graves left in our great state. No, we don't necessarily want to stand in the way of 'progress' - but we do want our ancestors to 'rest in peace', in their final resting places, without their graves and remains being discarded as just so much garbage.

We will appreciate ANY assistance in this matter, both now and in the future in protecting the graves of both my and your ancestors in the State of Tennessee.

Thank you,
your constituent,
Nancy Goodman

You may return email to me at:
Genny1@aol.com
====
CC:
Don Sundquist, Governor: dsundquist@mail.state.tn.us
Senator Douglas Henry: sen.douglas.henry@legislature.state.tn.us
Senator Joe Haynes: sen.joe.haynes@legislature.state.tn.us
Nick Fielder, State Archaeologist: nfielder@mail.state.tn.us
Jon Yates, Tennessean newspaper: Jonyates@reporters.net

Office of the Governor, State Capitol, Nashville, TN 37243-0001

Phone: (615) 741- 2001

http://www.legislature.state.tn.us/Senate/members/Members.htm

http://www.legislature.state.tn.us/House/Members/Members.htm