Community volunteers help maintain Old City Cemetery

Usually the Old City Cemetery is peaceful and still, but early Saturday morning there was the buzz of a grass trimmer and the scraping of rakes.

It was a small group, just 11 or so people, who gathered for the bi-monthly cleanup promoted by the Brownsville Historical Asso-ciation.

The city continues to push historical tourism as a revenue source, perhaps giving the cemetery even greater significance — it is .the final resting place for some of Brownsville earliest movers and shakers.

Some plots and mausoleums are well maintained, while others seem long forgotten, drawing attention only from the weeds and grass. Some of them appear anonymous without a name or even a tombstone.

William Quiñones stood with work gloves and a hat on, dripping with moisture because even at 9 a.m. the August sun in Brownsville is formidable. He said the Old City Cemetery hosts several of his ancestors, including his great-great-great-grandpar-ents.

“You’re walking back into that history,” he said of the cemetery. “You can connect everybody to what they did for Brownsville and making it grow.”

Maintaining the area is a show of respect and it figures into making a better downtown, he said.

“It’s like a gem. It’s something Brownsville should be proud of,” he said of the downtown area.

History, he said, gives us a much different perspective, noting the struggles of early residents, from succumbing to cholera to braving disastrous hurricanes.

BHA cemetery center assistant Josie Cisneros said about 15 people signed up to clean on Saturday, and sometimes businesses or community groups, including IBC bank or school organizations, pitch in.

“The historic part has been here since 1850,” she said. “I love to see when the community comes out here and helps out. People just come out of nowhere.”

Luz Garcia brought some of her family to the cleanup when she found out about it on Facebook.

“I like to do yard work, but also volunteer,” she said. “My daughter was telling me ‘Mom, why do you want to go to the cemetery?’ I said, ‘Well, it is kind of spooky, but it’s just volunteering.’”

She said people today can feel the history of the people and the land.

“There’s a part of everybody,” she said. “You look at the last name and say ‘Oh, I think I know.’ It’s interesting.”

Eugene Fernandez, executive director of the Friends of the Brownsville Historic City Cemetery, said Saturday that a portion of the historic area had been vandalized this past week.

He said bricks from a five-foot section of the white wall had been picked off sometime Thursday, despite the past several years spent upping security with cameras and night guards to protect the property.

“We’re trying so hard and then something like this happens,” he said.

Fernandez was instrumental in getting the cemetery and the Hebrew cemetery on the National Register of Historic Places last summer.

“It was a forgotten child for so long,” he said of the property. “People are finally starting to pay attention, so maybe if we talk about it more there will be less vandalism.”