By Anne W. Semmes
A good neighbor has brought new life to that historic cemetery up Riversville Road. It was on his walks past the cemetery aside the North Greenwich Congregational Church (NGCC) that the idea came to him, seeing that cemetery fallen into disrepair. He remembered calling his father in his native India to ask where his older brother who died young was buried over 50 years ago. He wanted to travel there to make sure the burial site was “in good order.” But he learned from his father “When we buried your brother, I was in the army, and there was no cemetery where you would bury a child. And so, we buried your brother in an open field somewhere.”
So, that good neighbor thought (he wishes to be anonymous), “How about if I can contribute to the cemetery here?” Yes, he is a Hindu. “But it doesn’t matter whether you’re Christian or Muslim or Hindu,” he says, “It’s about doing what’s right and this is our community. And we should have gratitude for those who departed before us – we should treat their place of rest with respect and reverence.”
The good neighbor reached out to the new pastor, the Rev. Karen Halac, quite busy in her new post with Covid, having hosted Neighbor to Neighbor on her campus during its shutdown, and a fallen tree on her church. “That’s a great idea,” Halac responded. Her church was planning just that when Covid hit, and she was awaiting an estimate.
The good neighbor knew just how to begin that cemetery repair. “I have these three masons from Guatemala and Ecuador. And they’re just phenomenal people. And they built a wall for me, and it’s one of the most beautiful walls.”
And so, beginning two weeks last August the work began with those masons. Ellen Vassallo, long time NGCC member describes those masons, “working from sunup to sundown. The first thing they did is they stood up every headstone that had fallen down. That was a huge number. Then they puzzled-pieced together the fragments on the ground and reassembled some of the headstones.”
“They actually used whatever cement or mortar they had to stick the fragments together and stand them up again,” tells fellow church member Andre Schipper, who was so inspired he stepped up to wash and polish every headstone. “I thought it would be a nice thank you note to the donor and the masons,” tells Schipper, “For they started the process of us paying attention to the cemetery a little more. So, for two or three weeks I sprayed all the stones with this stuff called Wet and Forget, – it kills the lichen and the algae.”
“Andre was taking them from dirty and illegible,” says Halac, “to bright and clean with names and dates newly visible.” Yes, from not being able to read 70 percent of the names to now 95 percent. And surfacing after so many years were those Biblical verses found on the bottom of the headstones.
Even the masons found their way to give back as Halac tells. “The masons were so good to us when they came back on their own time to help finish the rebuilding of the stone wall along Riversville Road the family of new church member Keville Thomason had funded for the funeral of her husband, the New York Times reporter Bob Thomason. They wanted it nice for the family. They then ‘added in’ the repair of the wall along the church driveway as their gift to the church. They kind of became friends with the church.”
“The difference just in driving up Riversville Road is just amazing,” says Vassallo, who has taken on cemetery management. And what about the surfacing of all those pioneering Greenwich names of the first families of this town found on a number of those cleaned headstones? The Ferrises and the Knapps, and those Civil War veterans, Isaac Close and Obediah Mead? Was the good neighbor aware of just how distinguished this cemetery is?
Surely church attendee Patric Hale is in that distinguished category, being a descendant of the Nathan Hale. He and Halac were former members of the American Church in Paris, and Hale is “particularly proud of everyone that ‘gave new life to the cemetery.’ He considers what the good neighbor has done as “one of the most profound Christian acts of forever love” he has witnessed “anywhere in the world” in his 70 years and sends his thank you.
The good neighbor begs off. “I haven’t done anything,” he shares. “It all originated from a level of deep contemplation through meditation. It all comes from God. My guru is Paramahansa Yogananda. He wrote ‘The Autobiography of a Yogi’ in 1946. And it was the only book that Steve Jobs had on his iPad, when he passed away. And he had it handed out to his friends and family at his memorial service.
“If there’s anything that could help people come together and realize that we all came from one place and we’re all going back to that one place – everything else is a delusion. Even Einstein said that. He said we are all one. God and us. We’re all one.”
