Friday, May 13, 2016

Stained Glass #5

 
  
Path between Mr. Phillips and Mr. Himmelberger.
Fence post with wire fence.
 View from the road.


Reading Eagle: Tim Leedy | Former Berks Career & Technology Center students Dante Altavilla, left, and Kyle Drobeck, center, and county Coroner Dennis J. Hess at the gate that marks the Potter's Field cemetery in Cumru Township. Altavilla and Drobeck helped build the arch, which was unveiled Thursday.


County officials unveil 'Potter's Field' arch in Cumru Township
Friday October 30, 2015 12:01 AM
If Berks County Coroner Dennis J. Hess had not known its history, the field off Cedar Top Road overlooking Route 724 in Cumru Township would have just been a good place from which to watch fireworks displays.
Although there are no grave markers or signs, Hess, long before he was elected coroner, knew that people were buried in the field, which is one of two potter's fields that were used to bury the remains of the indigent and unidentified.
"My brother-in-law used to live right up the road," Hess said Thursday, standing in the field that offers a view of the annual Mifflin Community Days July Fourth fireworks.
A few years ago, a state police detective asked Hess to exhume the graves of two unidentified females, one of whom was a confirmed murder victim. Hess arranged for an expert in forensic exhumations to come in and lead a team in locating, then carefully unearthing, the unmarked graves. The victims' bones were sent to a laboratory for DNA analysis, which confirmed their identities as two Philadelphia runaways.
On Thursday, the two-year anniversary of the grave exhumation, Hess and other county officials unveiled a metal arch sign that marks the site as simply "Potter's Field."
Hess said the grave exhumation set him on a quest to improve the appearance of what he called one of the most forgotten but important cemeteries in the county.
"I think it's time we brought some kind of dignity back to this cemetery and the people who were buried there," he said.
Last spring, he contacted the Berks Career & Technology Center to design and build a sign as a first step in upgrading the cemetery.
Hess provided the general concept of a large metal arch sign with scrollwork, and the instructors and their students took it from there.
Students in a few different programs at the BCTC campus in Bern Township worked on the project. Dale Roberts' welding students fabricated it over two months, using the design created by Mike Stein's advertising and design technology students, said Katherine Reimert, an instructor assistant at the technology school.
Automobile collision and repair technology students prepped and painted it, she said.
Two of the welding students who built the sign before graduating in June came out Thursday to see it unveiled at its permanent home.
Dante Altavilla, 18, of Exeter Township and Kyle Drobeck, 18, of Wernersville said they enjoyed working on the project that has a connection to the community.
"I was actually excited to come see it," Drobeck said. "We saw it standing in the shop but seeing it in the field is really cool."
County Commissioner Kevin S. Barnhardt said the county ordered 67 bricks, each bearing the name, if available, of a person buried at the site, from Glen-Gery Brick, Perry Township.
"This was part of the Berks County Almshouse, which is now the Berks Heim," Barnhardt explained. "There were hundreds of acres here owned by the county.
"Actually, where Governor Mifflin school (campus) is now is where the almshouse was, and this is where they oftentimes buried folks from the nursing home who had no immediate family. And, the coroner also buried people here."
The bricks were placed along perimeter of the property, but officials are considering placing them in cement under the sign arch in the middle of the field.
Hess was pleased with the student-built sign and promised it is just the beginning of upgrading the field.
"I really think this is the start of the whole thing of bringing dignity back to his cemetery," he said.
Contact Steven Henshaw: 610-371-5028 or shenshaw@readingeagle.com.