Cemetery Preservation Projects

Vienna Township Cemeteries

Vienna has three historic cemeteries maintained by the Vienna Township Trustees:

There is a fourth cemetery in Vienna, Crown Hill Burial Park, which is privately owned and maintained.

Preserving the Past

The Society is working to transcribe and upload photos of existing gravestones to findagrave.com (a database used by ancestry.com) in the Vienna Township Center Cemetery to assist with genealogical searches. Repairing, resetting, and cleaning gravestones are ongoing activities.

In the fall of 2020, all tombstones in Dunlap Cemetery were being actively cleaned with D2 Biological Solution and reset as a fall project.  Restoration and preservation efforts are headed by the Vienna Historical Society with assistance from the Vienna Township Trustees.

Images of a few headstones that were reset and cleaned at the Dunlap Cemetery cleanup, Fall 2020:
Images of a few headstones that were reset and cleaned at the Doud Cemetery cleanup, Spring 2021:

Save a Grave Campaign!

In 2019 the Society's Board of Directors started a fund to help fix broken obelisks and gravestones in the Vienna Township Cemetery and other historic Vienna cemeteries.  For more information or to donate, click here.

Society members cleaning up at Dunlap Cemetery, Fall 2020:
Society members cleaning up at Doud Cemetery, Summer 2020:

A Brief History of Vienna Historical Society's Cemetery Preservation Efforts

In 2009 Vienna Historical Society established a Township cemeteries documentation and preservation project. Society members, Vienna residents, and many others have joined the effort.

Seven volunteers documented the Doud Cemetery on Saturday, May 30, 2009. (The excellent doughnuts from the Fractured Prune, coffee, great weather, and good spirits helped the cause!)  For more on the cemetery project read the Tribune-Chronicle articles from May 30 and May 31, 2009.

In August 2009 Laura Worona, Youngstown State University intern, completed the documentation of the Dunlap Cemetery. Huzzah!

Society members gathered at the Township Green Gazebo on Saturday, September 19, 2009, and worked at the Township Cemetery from 9 A.M. until they were just too darn tired. Nearly 300 markers were documented and photographed! The Society thanks all the volunteers for their good cheer and energy: Vicki Anzur, Heidi Brown, Pam Clower, Warren Clower, Stephanie Durig, Michele Garman, Rachel Gibbs, Christen Higgins, Carol Novosel, Pamela Klinger, Donna J. Schieffer, Shirley Selbe, Shirley T. Wajda, and Lauren Worona. Thanks also to Ruth W. Miller, Sally Mazer, and Phil Pegg for their support! See the write-up in the September 25, 2019 Tribune-Chronicle!

Mathews High School Key Club members showed up in force on October 3, 4, and 5, 2009, to aid the Society's cemetery documentation project. The Club had adopted the cemetery as a community service project, and documented grave markers on Monday afternoons throughout the fall, weather permitting.

On April 27, 2010, the Society welcomed Ms. Worona at its monthly meeting.  Ms. Worona offered an update on her research. Ms. Worona reviewed through an illustrated lecture the lengthy gravemarkers and memorials documentation process undertaken over the last year by Society members, the Mathews Key Club, and members of the community.  Many of Vienna's founding families are to be found in the inscriptions on the stones but there is also a long-forgotten potter's field.

The discussion that followed centered on the necessity of further preservation work in the Township's cemeteries. President Michele Garman organized three Cemetery Preservation Days in the summer of 2010: June 12, July 17, and August 21, from 9 AM to noon. Society and community members cleared brush, cleaned headstones, and surveyed the Center Cemetery for further preservation work.

The Society also held preservation days at the Vienna Township Cemetery during the summers of 2011 and 2012. Doud Cemetery and Dunlap Cemetery were given attention during the 2013 preservation season.  In 2015 preservationist Tamara Conde repaired an obelisk in the Vienna Township Cemetery.

Society members resumed preservation efforts in the Fall of 2020 in Dunlap Cemetery, resetting and cleaning nearly two dozen stones.

In the summer of 2022, Hallowed Ground Cemetery Preservation came to the Vienna Township Cemetery to repair two fallen obelisks. The work on the Abiel Bartholomew (FG) and the John W. Scovill (FG) obelisks was completed on June 25, 2022 and funded by the Society and the Vienna Township Trustees.

Cemetery Tours

2009 Cemetery Tour PDF: In 2009, a brief tour of the Vienna Township Cemetery was created, based on Carley O'Neill's research for the Township's bicentennial history.

2010 Cemetery Tour PDF: The first cemetery tour proved popular, and in 2010 the Society hoisted its first Historic Cemetery Walk.  Some sixty visitors toured the older section of the cemetery.  The Warren Tribune-Chronicle covered this event.

2011 Cemetery Tour PDF: "Vienna and the Civil War" was the theme of the 2011 Cemetery Walk, held on October 22 and 23.

2012 Cemetery Tour PDF: The 2012 Cemetery Walk was entitled "Vienna's Women Pioneers and Pioneering Women."

2019 Self-Guided Gravestone Iconography Tour PDF:  A self-guided tour was created for folks to learn about the symbolism of gravestones in the Vienna Township Center Cemetery.  This tour is hosted by the Society on Vienna Home Days and annually in October for 6th grade students attending Baker Elementary School.

If you have any information you wish to share about any of Vienna's historic cemeteries, please contact the Society at inquiry@viennahistory.org.

For more information on cemetery preservation visit:
Guidelines for Cemetery Preservation