Honoring those who served

Among the solemn rows of gravesites are those whose narrative is one of valor, service and sacrifice. Memorialized are heroes from the past who wore combat uniforms during World War I and II or who donned military fatigues through the sub-zero intensity of Korea or the humid jungles of Vietnam. Their names will not be forgotten due to the dedicated efforts of today’s heroes.
The Taylor-Skartvedt American Legion Post 71 has created and posted a guide to veteran gravesites at the Sunny Slope Cemetery in Mott, pointing visitors to where more than 200 veterans are laid to rest within the cemetery.
“It’s a handy guide to people coming back to look for their family members or old friends to go over to their grave and stand there for a moment and say a prayer or reflect for a second. And it’s also a tribute to people who have taken a couple of years out of their life to serve their country, sometimes at high personal risk,” says American Legion Post Historian Kevin Carvell, who led the effort along with Post Chaplain David Glasser.
Among those now identified is Civil War veteran Samuel Teal, who was born in Kentucky in 1843, fought in the Civil War and died in Mott in 1919. He came to North Dakota to homestead south of Mott in 1907.
“He was a staunch prohibitionist and a man of integrity and very generous impulses, which won him many friends,” Carvell reads from a newspaper clipping.
Along with the guide, a bronze marker placed at Teal’s gravesite by the American Legion signifies his veteran status.
“We put those up whenever we discover a veteran is buried without his gravestone taking note of that,” Carvell says.
And there’s Oliver Welker, who moved to Mott in 1915, where he was a shoemaker and harness maker until his death in 1933.
A veteran of the Spanish-American War, Welker was born in Pennsylvania in 1880 and enlisted in the U.S. Army at the age of 16. He served in the Philippines and “saw considerable action and hardship.”
While Welker’s gravesite does not have a marker, he is buried next to his son. But his gravesite may have been lost without the Legion’s documentation.
Located next to the flagpole in the cemetery’s center, the guide, which is enclosed in a box, lists the names of veterans buried there and the location of their graves as an aid to families seeking those graves and to citizens interested in the men and women who served their country in the armed forces.
Hettinger County does have reference materials about gravesites. One primary reference book for gravesites and burials in the county is “Compiled Hettinger County ND Cemeteries,” written by Patrice Hartman and published privately in 1993. It records burials across 46 rural cemeteries and burial sites in Hettinger County.
And volumes produced by state officials contain all the names of those who served in the military, but the massive volumes with thousands of pages are cumbersome to pinpoint certain veterans, Carvell says.
So, matching veteran status with the gravesites was another enormous effort, spanning more than a decade, Carvell says.
Each year during Memorial Day, the Taylor-Skartvedt American Legion Post 71 places flags on the last resting places of veterans, some of whom gave their lives in combat.
Over the years, some of these gravesites have been difficult to identify because of missing or decaying grave markers, tombstones which do not reflect the deceased’s military service and graves with similar names. As a result, an effort was undertaken to locate and identify each burial site, according to Carvell.
“I don’t know how many trips to these cemeteries and then going back again to doublecheck and then you run across a grave and it says, ‘Died in 1943,’ and the person’s 19 years old and you think, ‘Oh, God, that’s right during World War II and he’s the right age,’ and then you have to go back and do the research,” says Carvell, who leaned on his personal library for information.
“Sometimes, just for the heck of it, I like to light up a cigar and drive out in the country. I love local history, so I would stop at these rural cemeteries and walk up and down and look at each grave and read the inscriptions, smoke the cigar and began thinking about this in a greater extent,” Carvell says.
And the project continues. Some veteran gravesites may not yet be recognized, so the Legion is asking for the public’s help. If anyone is aware of any veteran gravesites, they are asked to notify the local Legion, so those names can be added to the master list. The Mott American Legion Post commander is Herb Quamme.
The American Legion also recognizes veterans at a monument at the Mott American Legion Park. There, veterans who have died who had ties to Mott are memorialized. Nearly 1,000 names are now on the monument, dating back to the Civil War as well. Names are added each year.
It’s one more granite reminder of those who wore a soldier’s uniform.