FLORENCE, Ky. — A slight difference in the direction of a group of headstones sent Hillary Delaney on a search to see who was actually buried in the Florence Cemetery.
While leading a tour group through the cemetery, something struck Delaney as odd.
"I started to realize that some of the graves are facing the fence, instead of traditionally facing the path, like the rest of the graves are," she said.
Delaney isn't the groundskeeper of Florence Cemetery. She doesn't even have family buried there. But she can tell you so much about the who's who of the cemetery. And sometimes she can't.
"This one is Edmond, he also served in the Civil War. This woman right here, she's driving me crazy," Delaney said. "It just says wife of Thomas Price, right? And we don't know who she is."
Delaney is an employee of the Boone County Public Library. She's been on a four-year mission to find out who's down below. This final resting place with about 10 headstones in the area actually holds 127 souls and counting. Those people stayed segregated in life and in death.
"I don't want to re-traumatize anyone and identify these people as enslaved people only, but I wanted to point out to the community that people who have been enslaved their entire lives found freedom and built the community," she said.
People like Thomas Thomas.
"He actually was a landowner here after he attained his freedom in 1865," Delaney said. "Then he founded the church about a block and a half from here. It's the earliest African-American church in Boone County."
But Delaney laments not knowing much about Catherine Dunson and her child, Winfred.
"She was 17 and she had a 2-year-old who died a year before her," she said.
On Thursday, Nov. 2, all her hard work will pay off. The Boone County Public Library will hold a ceremony dedicating a memorial to remember the people buried at Florence Cemetery, adding richness to the town's story.
"That history is largely ignored, and it was historically ignored and so it was sort of omitted, forgotten, left out," Delaney said. "I feel like as a historian who focuses on local history, that's a huge disservice to our community to leave out all of these people who were once here."
The public is invited to the memorial dedication. The ceremony starts at 2 p.m. inside the cemetery at 199 Center Street in Florence.
