William Fleming and his wife, Nancy Christian Fleming, are buried in a stone-walled graveyard surrounded by Ole Monterey Golf Course in Northeast Roanoke. City records list the cemetery owner as the Read-Fleming Cemetery Trust. When Cardinal News visited the graveyard on July 16, it was badly overgrown.
Cardinal contacted the Nancy Christian Fleming chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. The DAR contacted the Sons of the American Revolution. Eric Monday, state chancellor of the Virginia Sons of the American Revolution and president of the Fincastle Resolutions Chapter at Roanoke, responded with this email:
“DAR and SAR administer a joint trust fund to maintain that cemetery, and as you might suspect is the case with many heritage organizations with aging membership, our trustee is now ‘on in years’ and no longer really able to deal with it — as is the gentleman who was volunteering his time to maintain the cemetery.
“So — your email brought the matter to my attention, and the local SAR chapter is sending a maintenance crew out there to clean up the cemetery and, going forward, we will ensure that it remains maintained.”
When Cardinal visited again on July 30, the weeds and tall grass in and around the graveyard had been mowed.
“Thanks very much for inadvertently bringing this matter to our attention and, quite literally —helping to get things cleaned up!” Monday said. “In any event, and essentially thanks to your article, the cemetery is now on a regularly scheduled maintenance plan, going forward.”
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