The Volunteers of Concordia Cemetery are being recognized for their efforts at Preservation Buffalo Niagara's awards luncheon May 19 at the Hyatt hotel. Their efforts to maintain the historic cemetery located at 438 Walden Avenue earned them recognition under the Neighborhood Conservation category. Award categories were established to acknowledge distinguished contributions to our community through preservation activity. Recipients will be recognized in the following areas: restoration; rehabilitation/adaptive use; stewardship; landscape preservation; neighborhood conservation; preservation service; and education and outreach.
Concordia Cemetery has been part of WNY's history for over 150 years and in 2008 the site was listed on the NYS Register of Historic Sites and the National Register of Historic Places. Concordia was cited as a significant historic property because of its representation of Buffalo's early German immigrant population and its collection of grave monuments. Formed in 1859, Concordia Cemetery is one of the oldest cemeteries in WNY and one of only three cemeteries in the city.
The land, originally part of lot 51 of the Holland Land Survey, was located on Genesee Plank Road. It was sold in 1859 to three German Lutheran churches to be shared as their burial ground: St. Peter's German Evangelical Church founded in 1835, St. Stephen's Evangelical Church organized in 1853, and First Trinity Lutheran Church founded in 1839. The term "Concordia" means harmony and is a reference to the coming-together of three Buffalo church congregations to share this property. This is itself is very unique.
Encompassing 15 acres on Walden Avenue at Sycamore Street, the cemetery is the final resting place for thousands of early residents of Buffalo, including over 450 war veterans of which 125 are Civil War veterans. Currently there are over 16,800 people of all ethnic backgrounds and religions buried there.
The nonprofit cemetery fell on hard times in 2001 when its treasurer was accused of embezzling $154,000 in cemetery funds. He was convicted and imprisoned but the damage was done; the cemetery was abandoned in 2003. A short time later, a group of family members of those buried at Concordia came forth and volunteered, working hard to maintain the property. On September 10, 2003 the Concordia Cemetery Association held a special meeting to reorganize and elect a new Board of Trustees.
Volunteer coordinator Wayne Rettke, who has sixty family members buried in the cemetery, started organizing the records of the cemetery and created a database of all the lot owners taken from ledgers, notebooks and sometimes just scraps of paper that were stored in the old farmhouse on the property. He was able to find and record over 26,800 names during this daunting task that took six years to complete. He has assisted hundreds of families who have been searching for their family roots in Buffalo.
Rettke has also manually mapped the location of all the plots and identified those buried in each location, a project that he started in 2005 and finished in 2008. He can be found virtually every Saturday at the cemetery to assist families in finding the resting places of their ancestors and to teach them about the history of Concordia and its place in the history and development of Buffalo.
As volunteer coordinator, Rettke oversees the volunteers who came annually on the United Way Day of Caring to help landscape the grounds, paint the fence, trim the trees and shrubs, clean litter in the surrounding neighborhood and whatever else was needed. Volunteers have been taught how to locate and uncover many flat and overturned tombstones which had slipped beneath the soil. Over six years, more than 400 previously lost stones have been found and recovered. Grant money was secured to restore weathered or vandalized tombstones, the original iron fence and to replace the lichgate sign over the entranceway which had been stolen.
Concordia has come a long way since being abandoned, but still faces many challenges in preserving the historic integrity of 151 years of Buffalo history. It is only through the work of volunteers working to preserve, restore and protect, that this often forgotten gem of Buffalo's historic past will be saved for future generations. Rettke will accept the award at the luncheon on behalf of all of the cemetery volunteers.
Get Connected: Friends of Concordia Facebook page.
I am surprised no one has bothered to comment on this achievement!
Congratulations to all of those involved in resurrecting Concordia Cemetery, which is clearly a labor of love for all of those involved.
Perhaps Concordia will consider offering tours of the site like Forest Lawn Cemetery especially if there happen to be any note worthy individuals whose final resting place is located within the grounds.