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A mission of grave importance

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This memorial day many will spend the holiday in the sun, at a barbeque, or just taking a much needed break from the nine to five. Some will mark the occasion with a visit to the family cemetery. Americans all over the country will take the opportunity to remember those that have fallen in combat.
On Memorial Day, Arlington National Cemetery receives more than 135,000 visitors. Many, service members or otherwise, might not get the opportunity to be remembered and mourned due to having an unmarked grave. Things such as lost records, the ravages of nature, human activity and even just time itself can cause someone’s final resting spot to go unmarked. It is currently unknown how many unmarked graves are in America.
Enter Travis Holt.
Holt is a Newton County native, with family in the area going back seven generations, as well as a local historian and author. As Holt puts it, his life’s work is to mark unmarked graves.
His journey began in 2016 when he adopted the Cottonwood Cemetery in Omaha. He did the usual work of weed eating and moving stuff when he noticed something. One day he saw that someone had stolen the headstone of Ros Ramsey, a name Travis says he will never forget. Ramsey died at just seven months old in the winter of 1897, and now someone had taken the tombstone to commemorate him.
Holt bought a new headstone to remember his burial site. Afterwards, this gave him a spark of inspiration. “After doing that I thought, well that was easy, why don't I save $50 dollars every time I get paid and use it to put up new stones for damaged and unmarked graves,” Holt said. From there, he began volunteering on the website Findagrave.com, a website that can help people find where people are buried. He then transcribed his Aunt Oleta’s “Newton County Cemeteries,” onto the website. He would then photograph entire cemeteries. That created a list of the burials that were unmarked, so then he began putting up stones for those that were unmarked.
His cemetery interests didn’t start with adopting Cottonwood Cemetery, though. It goes all the way back to his childhood, walking around Smith Cemetery in Vendor with his great-grandmother Edna Holt. “I was always fascinated by cemeteries and the history of those buried there.”
But it’s not a love of tombstones that draws Holt in, it’s the stories behind the stones. As he said, “Along the way, I started writing some short stories about the interesting graves I had marked.” He took these stories and some recountings of his own family's stories and turned them into a book titled, “Red Rock Shadow.” The stories were not done yet, as he has written a second book, “Hill Stories,” due out soon.
His journey has brought many interesting stories. His grandfather once told him a story about a man found dead on Dry Creek. Nobody was ever arrested for it, but as Travis put it, it was a “very shady deal.” Holt later found the name of the man, Ivan J. Russell, and placed a stone for him in Jasper. After some time had passed, he received word from a woman who was living in Sydney, Australia. As she recounted, Ivan was stationed off the Australian coast in the midst of World War II. While there he began dating the woman’s grandmother. When the time came to leave, the woman couldn't, so she stayed behind in Australia. The granddaughter told Holt, “If you hadn't marked his grave, we never would have known what happened to him.”
He described that as “an amazing moment.” He has also marked the grave of Marion Lewis. Lewis was a fiddler murdered in Madison County in 1905. He later got in contact with Lewis’ family, who even still have the blood stained fiddle he was holding when he was stabbed.
From the stones of two men who drowned in the Buffalo River in 1929, to the origin of the name of Dead Man’s Bluff in Jasper, as he put it “every one of these stones has a story.” You can find more of these stories on his blog at newtoncountyark.wordpress.com
Travis does give the occasional talk on the subject, at places such as the Pope County Historical Society, J3 at The Gap, Jeep Jam in Jasper, the Newton County Library, and the moonshine tour of Mt. Judea. As of writing, he has marked more than 300 graves so far. He has received donations sometimes, J3 at The Gap recently held a fundraiser and donated 10% of the proceeds to his efforts. Mostly, though, he shoulders the load of the cost, putting $50 dollars back out of his paycheck. Small stones usually cost around $85 dollars, while larger stones can go for $100-$150. Holt says that the larger ones are used mainly for those with multiple names and for veterans.
Holt called the work he has done to preserve the past of Newton County “a blessing” As he said, “Since the beginning of this journey I have learned so much more about [my] home and the people in it. Every family member I place a marker for is another story to learn and tell.”
The hills of Newton County are alive with history and stories of those who have gone before. For seventh generation Newton Countian Travis Holt, he is sharing those stories so that those lost to the sands of time may live on.



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