Red Bank holds Decoration Day for restored cemetery
RED BANK, Tenn. (WDEF)- Two years ago, we brought you a story about a group of Red Bank citizens and preservationists looking to restore a historic cemetery.
Now, their vision has been completed, as they’ve honored those laid to rest that built their community decades ago.
Nick: Behind a row of houses off of Morrison Springs Road, the Red Bank Cemetery used to sit abandoned and neglected.
However, over the past two years thanks to the efforts of the Red Bank Cemetery Advisory Council, the cemetery has been fully restored.
To commemorate the work done, a Decoration Day ceremony was held on Saturday.
The council’s chairman, Sal Arrigo Jr., said, “Well, Decoration Day is a Southern tradition. So as we got working on the cemetery and got it to the point today where it is cleaned up from what it used to be, we decided we had to have some sort of celebration.”
Joined by members of the Red Bank High School ROTC and Band, they honored those laid to rest at the cemetery.
Many of those buried here are among the founding families of the community.
Arrigo said, “The families really appreciate it. Some of our committee members have reached out to family members, and they have thanked us for cleaning the headstones, thank you for making this a wonderful day for us.”
One tradition fulfilled as part of Decoration Day is the placing of flowers on each gravestone.
The gravestones had to be cleaned one by one as part of the restoration.
Arrigo said, “We wanted everyone to have a flower, and so the committee thought, what better way then to honor them with white carnations.”
Even with the project fully completed, the work will never stop to make sure these hallowed grounds remain a source of pride for Red Bank.
Arrigo said, “When we first started, we were like what do we do first? What do we clean up? So we started cleaning up the headstones. We started cleaning up the brush. We started cleaning up some real messes in the cemetery including trash. We just kept progressing and progressing and this is it today.”
They will be holding two clean up days each year in April and October to maintain the cemetery.
