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By Josh Hester
CUBA–It’s interesting what can turn up in your backyard, and for Sandra Garrison, the past two summers have yielded some unusual finds.
Garrison, who lives on Vance Street, said that last summer while her niece was staying with her, two halves of separate tombstones were found in her backyard. The stones looked authentic and dated back to the late 1800s.
One of Garrison’s summer projects was to tear down an old shed in her backyard and put up a new metal shed.
“When we tore down the old shed, we found 10 other headstones,” she said. “David Wheeler, who was tearing down my shed found them on Thursday and they couldn’t have been buried too deep because all he did was level out some ground. He didn’t do any digging.”
The tombstones were clearly marked with the surname Cates and years on two of the stones were clearly etched 1858 to 1878 and 1830 to 1907.
Upon further inspection, Garrison found what looked to be four other stones around the foundation of the old shed and underneath where the shed once sat.
“If there are people buried back there, what do you do at that point, leave them?” she said.
Through various acquaintances, Garrison learned that census records didn’t show any Cates in the area, leaving her no other information to go off of.
When the first two pieces surfaced last year, Garrison said she contacted the Cuba Police Department and city hall.
“I talked to Detective Mike Center and he said it was probably just vandals who threw it back there,” she said. “That was when we had only found two pieces.”
After her recent strike, Cates called Three Rivers Publishing and made calls to the historical society, hoping to find some answers.
Public Works Director Bob Baldwin visited the site on Monday, and was unable to give Garrison a solid answer, and from his first impression the tombstones were authentic.
“There could be something on the deed if this ever was a burial site,” he said. “This is a first for me.”
Baldwin said that the city had a similar situation at the industrial park years ago, but quickly found that a monument company had made a mistake and thrown a headstone onto the land as filler.
Baldwin told Garrison that he would pull the copy of the deed that the city has access to and see what he could find.
He told TRP on Tuesday that he had spoken with a friend of the former property owner and had solved the mystery.
“The man who used to live at the house, at least 20 years ago, worked at the monument company on East Washington,” Baldwin said. “The tombstones she found were replacements, broken pieces or were incorrectly engraved that he had used for the foundation and floor of his shed.”
Baldwin said that Garrison did the right thing by getting in touch with someone at the city.
“If it had been a burial plot, I would have needed to contact the state to find out what needed to be done,” he said. “If it was a burial plot, it would have needed to have been taken care of.”
Garrison was relieved to hear what Baldwin had to say.
“He probably is right, but I’m going to do a little more investigating,” she said. “I know what he’s saying makes more sense than anything, but I’m going to do some more investigating.”
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