JOHN ROLLIN RIDGE FAMILY PLOT: Another Successful Cleanup
A BIG WADO to the CNCV Volunteers: Odell & Nancy Landers, Ted Richardson (who has volunteered for every cleanup and ceremony), Roxy & Jed Horne, Sabrina McKinney & Robert Grossklaus, Liz & Mike Webb. We all met at 10:00 AM to do the annual maintenance at the John Rollin Ridge Family Plot in the unendowed section of the historic Greenwood Memorial Cemetery in Grass Valley, CA. The weather was perfect, skies were clear as we worked under the shade of the surrounding trees (a majority of very large Cedar trees). All in all it was a beautiful day in nature with our Cherokee Family working in the Ancient Cherokee Tradition of gadugi.
The plot was in fairly good shape and only took us a couple of hours. When we arrived I noticed the buffalo and Indian head nickels (that Martha Blackbird placed on each marker at our last celebration) to my disappointment, were all missing. My first thought was vandals had taken them. These nickels had been donated by my friends and neighbors in Roseville Ron & Carol Pope. Ron Pope and I share common ancestry through the Cherokee line of our French Cherokee relative, John A. Shoemake (b: 1803 South Carolina, USA, d: 1855, Jackson Alabama, USA). Our French line goes back to 1590, France. Ron assured me that these particular nickels were not valuable collector items.
To our pleasant surprise, as the clean up progressed all the nickels were found on the ground covered in dirt near each monument. They likely were blown off during winter storms. Originally, I didn’t want to glue them to each stone because I thought vandals might cause damage trying to remove them. Sometime in the near future I’m going up to glue them on the markers. The CNCV Grant Money provides travel money for gas (all volunteers happily requested their share to be paid to Roxy & Jed because of the long distance they have to travel) as well as food for our volunteers. After the cleanup we went to Maria’s Mexican Restaurant in Grass Valley for another fun enjoyable lunch. We came in under budget, tip included (Cherokees are known as generous people). I’m looking forward to another successful cleanup next year!
--Mike Webb
