Elizabeth Curtis Wallace’s tombstone at the Wallace family cemetery in Deep Creek Rock Park also bears the inscription: “Blessed is the pure heart, for they shall see God.” (Bob Rugerseg)
Twelve years ago, Norfolk native Jean Sylvester Spencer began work on updating Norfolk Gravestone Inscriptions, originally published in 1979.
Spencer and several colleagues at the Chesapeake-Norfolk County Historical Society recently completed a research project aimed at preserving Norfolk County by documenting tombstone inscriptions and burial sites in Chesapeake City’s history.
The new edition is titled “Inscriptions and Tombstone Studies in Norfolk County and Chesapeake City”.
“The mission of our organization is to preserve the history of Chesapeake (formerly Norfolk County). We are Norfolk County,” said Robert Hitchings, current chairman of the Chesapeake National Health Service. “In 1963, we became Chesapeake City. Many people came together because they were afraid their legacy would be lost, especially in regards to the cemetery, so Mrs. Wingo and her daughters of the American Revolution wrote the first book.
The idea to update the original book was initiated by the late Stuart Smith, president of the Chesapeake Norfolk Historical Society.
“I am also an employee of the organization and we were talking about all the people whose cemeteries are not listed in the DAR book,” Spencer said.
The NCHS Cemetery Inscription team recently completed a 12-year conservation project. Left to right: Robert Higgins, Jean Spencer, Kay Ziegler and Susie Ward Fleming. Bob Ruegsegger/Freelancer
Jean Spencer and Stuart Smith began editing information for updated editions of DAR publications in 2010. Spencer inherited the lead and became the inspiration behind the revision. Kay Ziegler appeared on the scene in 2012, and in 2014 they began to discuss the progress of the update.
“Things really progressed, so I started helping her,” Kesigler said. “Susie [Fleming] got on the boat and started helping. We finally got it all sorted out.”
Chesapeake Public Schools printed this book using community resources, not a third party publisher. Cemeteries are listed in the book alphabetically by last name.
Jean Sylvester Spencer is a native of Norfolk. Her father was raised on a farm in the Northwest and her mother was from Currituck, North Carolina. “I love history. I have a local third grade teacher who just loves history,” Spencer said. “There is nothing more historical than a cemetery. They show who was there, families, dates of birth and death.”
The Daughters of the American Revolution published Gravestone Inscriptions in Norfolk County, Virginia in 1979. Bob Ruegsegger / freelance writer
As the landscape of the Chesapeake is changing so rapidly, and forgotten family cemeteries are increasingly overgrown with wooded swampy areas, the tombstone research team sees both historic preservation and community service in their efforts.
“I think people would like to know where their ancestors are buried,” Spencer said. “You won’t believe some of the places in the swamp where Kay and I went – and Susie. Then they were buried in the ground, where there could be a crop.
Walking through woods and swamps, driving along old country roads in search of tombstones – this is not something that Jean Spencer could do alone. She wanted support, just in case.
“This is not a one man show. It’s impossible,” Spencer said. “I didn’t want to go alone. That’s when Kay showed up. It meant we were a group, we were historical figures.”
Tombstone Inscription team members Jean Spencer, Kay Ziegler, Susie Ward Fleming and Robert Hitchings were greatly helped by others. Acknowledgments span two pages.
Kay Ziegler’s sister, Janice Jones, who lives in Pennsylvania, typed the book. Jones, who helped publish other books, knew her sister was working on a project and offered to help with it.
Tombstone inscriptions and research Cemetery markings in Norfolk and Chesapeake have nearly doubled, plus GPS coordinates for graveyard locations. Bob Ruegsegger/Freelancer
“She asked me to send her a book and she will look at it. She helped me,” Ziegler said. “I don’t know how much time we spend on the phone,” she said. “We came. We looked at her original work. If she had questions, she double-checked the facts. We went back and forth.”
Kay Ziegler suggested adding GPS (Global Positioning System) coordinates to each cemetery to make it easier to find these places now and in the future. Finding some of the graves known to exist has been a challenge for the Tombstone Inscription team. GPS is expected to solve the positioning problem.
“We covered at least 95 percent of the cemeteries,” said Susie Ward Fleming. “The Chesapeake has changed. The graves have been moved. We have most of it.” We are like a dog with a bone. If we have a clue, we must follow it. ”
Jean Spencer and her team searched in vain at the Sykes burial site until they received a tip from a woman doing research in the Wallace Room of the Chesapeake Public Library. She contacted one of the family’s descendants buried there, Miss Emma, 88.
NCHS board member Laurie Pickett arranged for two large 4×4 trucks to take the team to a conservation area – off Ranger Road – where there used to be a graveyard with a hidden graveyard in the old settlement.
Jean Sylvester Spencer is the mastermind behind an ambitious conservation research project. She does not want to wander alone through the wilderness and swamps of the Chesapeake, so she recruits a group of fearless companions. Bob Ruegsegger/Freelancer
“After we got out of 4WD, we had to go back another mile to get to the cemetery,” Susie Fleming said. “We also took the woman who told us about it. This is her family. She is 88 years old. She wants to go back there and visit her family cemetery. Now there’s nothing there but the woods… and the tombstones of the Sikes family.”
Susie Ward Fleming joined the Tombstone team about a year ago. She worked at the Customer Care Center in Chesapeake City. She knows several cemeteries in the area. Fleming and her intrepid colleagues managed to track down all the cemeteries listed in the 1979 headstone inscription, despite the fact that some of them did their best to elude them.
“We found many of these cemeteries by pulling out land and documents. We wrote letters, knocked on doors and talked to people on the phone. Which worked,” Fleming said. “It’s a project, but it’s a labor of love for all of us.”
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