PETERSBURG The toppled headstone on Joseph Bland's gravesite reads, "Gone but not forgotten." But the buried at this patch of East View Cemetery have been forsaken.

This wooded part of the graveyard is a bleak landscape of collapsed coffins, fallen headstones, brush and litter. But that's not the worst of it.

Mounds of dirt contain human teeth, bone fragments and pieces of old coffins.

"These were dumped from somewhere else," asserts Laura Powell Kiser, a bioarchaeologist and Chester resident who has made East View a personal crusade.

"These graves, they've been disturbed but not dug up . . . so you actually have an injustice that's been done to at least two cemeteries," she said.

East View, according to Kiser, is a historic African-American cemetery with an estimated 200 unmarked graves, including some dating back to the late 19th century. It is bordered by four other historic cemeteries, including Blandford.

The proximity only heightens the contrast between the care at Blandford, Petersburg's well-tended version of Hollywood Cemetery, and the neglect at East View.

The cemetery is owned by Virginia Burial Supply of Petersburg, according to Shelton W. Smith, general manager of J.M. Wilkerson Funeral Establishment of Petersburg, the former owner. Virginia Burial Supply officials did not return phone and e-mail messages.

The condition of the gravesites at East View mirrors a larger problem -- the lack of perpetual care at historically black cemeteries. In Richmond, historic Evergreen is among such graveyards where the dead are often gone and forgotten.

"I think these places just run out of money and can't generate enough revenue," said Chris Stevenson, a regional archaeologist with the Virginia Department of Historic Resources.

Bioarchaeologist Dane Magoon, vice president of Cultural Resources Inc. in Richmond, has been to East View with Kiser. "Laura's right in that those are human remains and that they're scattered around," he said. "And it looks like they were brought and dumped there in the fill that came from someplace else."

Stevenson, who has also visited the site, takes a less sinister view. Still, the Department of Historic Resources was concerned enough to alert the cemetery owner that it needs to be more careful, he said.

He says the staff at the cemetery likely was digging new graves and hit an area of unmarked graves. The excess soil was put in a staging area.

"That's why you end up with material on the surface. It's not intentional dumping. There's no surface guidelines for the staff at the cemetery. So as a result, they're accidentally hitting those graves."

Stevenson said it's a felony to disturb a gravesite, "but I don't think that comes into play here. They're trying to fit people in a crowded situation with poor records. I think they're fairly sensitive to what they're doing."

Still, the situation at East View is unusual. Stevenson said he's aware of remains being dug up at small family plots, but not at large cemeteries such as East View.

The dead at East View and their families deserve better. This situation clearly frustrates Kiser, even though her family members rest in relative splendor in Blandford.

"No one wants to own up to it," she said, "but it needs to be fixed."
Contact Michael Paul Williams at (804) 649-6815 or mwilliams@timesdispatch.com.