New Brockton Three Seasons Garden Club takes care of special project

Carole Brand/cbrand@eprisenow.comSeveral members of the Three Seasons Garden Club of New Brockton show a new fence installed in front of the town’s cemetery. The club raised donations to help install the black aluminum fence and the club also plans to place memorial columns at the cemetery entrance. Garden Club members are (from left) Alice Howe, Mary Ellen McCormick, Wanza Peacock and Mary Brantley.

By Carole Brand
Published: October 06, 2009

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With fundraisers and donations from family members, the Three Seasons Garden Club has installed a new fence at the New Brockton Cemetery as one of its special service projects this year.
The black aluminum fence serves as a boundary between a nearby road and the cemetery, which is one block from downtown New Brockton.
“As part of the Garden Club, we are caretakers of the town’s cemetery,” club member Alice Howe said. “This is only one of our service projects we have ongoing. The next one is to add memorial columns on each side of the fence.”
Garden club member Mary Brantley said various fundraisers assist with costs of the upkeep outside the cemetery grounds.
“We take care of the grass on the outside. We leave the inside for family members,” she said. “Our cost of maintaining the cemetery in 2008 was $4,318.43. Ronald Pope provides the maintenance for the cemetery at the lowest cost possible.”
Wanza Peacock, one of the historians in the group, said the cemetery has served the town since the early 1900s.
“We have the original deed to the cemetery and it dates way back. The Brock family, which help found the town, donated the land for the cemetery. Jim and Judy Driskell donated a portion and the Monagle family donated some,” she said.
“At first, the New Brockton Sorosis Club took the cemetery over as a club project in 1989,” Peacock said. “Several years later, the club turned over the care and maintenance to our garden club.”
Most of the funds for the fence and upkeep of the cemetery come from family members of the deceased and from community members, said Howe.
“We are asking the public to donate some funds now to help us build the memorial columns on each end of the fence,” Howe said. “This is our only town cemetery and it is part of our history and we want it to look the best. We’d like to also repaint the brick entrance and make improvements to the back entrance. I know these things have to be done in stages as funds become available.”
To donate to the cemetery improvements, send contributions to New Brockton Cemetery Fund, P O. Box 358, New Brockton, Al. 36351.