- Will you Consider This?

If you're 146 years old with a proud heritage, what do you do to keep yourself up?

Springdale Cemetery has managed to rise up over the years.

Our guest will fill us in on all that's going on on those over 200 acres.

(upbeat music) Under private ownership, Springdale Cemetery on Peoria's East Bluff, fell into disrepair and the city took control.

Its rich history is a saving grace.

I'm Christine Zak-Edmonds and please help me welcome Springdale cemeteries, general manager to Consider This.

Mark Matuszak and how are you today?

- I'm just fine thank you very much.

- This fine day and your wife.

You have a little relationship here with the station.

- A little bit.

- Just a little bit so it's nice that, you found the time to come and say hello to her and to me as well and all of us.

Okay, so Springdale Cemetery is this amazing, really beautiful place.

How did you get to be there with your past experience in you were in marketing, advertising, printing, how did this happen?

- It was an interesting thing.

The very briefest story is that after selling the companies that I owned and operated for many, many years, I was home and I spent about 90 days at home.

And one day Leslie came in and said, guess what?

I think I found you a job.

- [Christine] And you weren't looking for a job.

- My response was, I don't want a job.

But at any rate it several conversations with some of the city leaders who had some issues with Springdale Cemetery, the management of Springdale Cemetery approached me to see if I would consider being the manager or at least applying for that job.

And after some discussions with Leslie, who was adamant about me not being home on a regular basis, I did interview for it and fortunately I was selected to do it and that was over six years ago now.

- It's such an odd thing that, I mean, we all know what cemeteries are for, and that you're marketing this cemetery that had its roots in the 19th century so 1855 around that time.

- That's correct.

- How do you market a place like that?

It's an odd concept.

- It is a Very odd concept.

And you're right everybody knows what cemeteries are for, but in Peoria, at least a lot of people didn't realize why Springdale came to be.

Back in the 1850s, 1860s, Peoria was a small town.

There was probably a dozen or so small cemeteries that just surrounded the town and they were very small.

We're talking perhaps a couple of typical residential lots.

- Right or churches properties.

- That's right church backyards.

And again, there were probably 12, maybe 15 of those things throughout the community.

And one day as the community kept growing, there was a group of individuals that said, we need a large cemetery to capture all of these deaths that are going on in the Peoria area.

And they went out of town about a mile or so out of the center of town, which is the East Bluff right now, where Springdale is.

I believe they started off with 175 acres that grew to like 254 today.

And that became to Peoria's Park Cemetery.

- [Christine] Interesting.

- And when I say it that way, it's because it was used at that time as a park, as well as being a place for burials.

And the park-like atmosphere and terrain of Springdale was just beautiful for that and that was the way it was done way back then.

And so people in this preceded Peoria park district by a lot.

And it was a movement that went on about that time, many places around the country, but we were fortunate enough to have it here in Springdale or in Peoria.

- This is, and it's the oldest cemetery in the state of Illinois or oldest chartered cemetery.

- I Continue to get that incorrect.

I'm not sure I can give you a couple of statements we either the oldest or we are the second oldest or we're the largest or the second largest, one of those of those four pick two and two are correct.

- Okay, and whatever combination.

- Correct.

- Right, you have, well this is interesting.

We'll get a shot of this later, a self guided tour of the cemetery.

There are a lot of individuals buried there that probably Peorians who are interested in history need to get there and to visit their graves and learn more about them.

- Absolutely, the leaders of Peoria's growth for many decades most of them are buried at Springdale Cemetery.

And because of the length of time, many of the markers or monuments that are at Springdale cemetery are literally works of art.

I mean, the carvings are magnificent and just a tour through some of the older sections of the cemetery is a great educational experience.

- Schools do they still come?

The teachers bring them and that's part of their history lesson.

- We have, several schools visiting us during the course of every year that I've been there anywhere from classes of 15 or 20 kids to a four or five school buses.

And the teachers love to get their kids out there.

And they'll come up with a premise for the kids to do example would be putting the kids up in the soldiers hill area, which is, there's about 300 civil war veterans that are buried there.

And the kids would take names down and then look that up afterwards.

And it was a great educational experience for the kids.

- Well, and you've done a lot to make improvements to soldiers hill specifically after you visited Arlington and then you went to France and Germany.

- Even before I started at Springdale, Leslie and I took a trip to France.

And before that we were at Arlington national in DC where Leslie's father is interred.

And there's a story about that also, but then we went to France and to Normandy, and we experienced the American cemetery there.

And matter of fact, I was very new to Springdale when we went to Normandy and in addition to the American cemetery, we visited the German cemetery in Normandy, two radically different looks.

But the care that was given to those sites was really a motivator to me to, to make sure that Springdale moved on and continued to be relevant to the public that we serve.

- Cemeteries are places for you to reflect, quiet time, even if you have someone at Springdale that you care to remember, but some people are afraid of cemeteries.

They don't want to go there and experience anything.

And so how do you overcome that kind of fear of them and letting them know that this is rich with history?

- Well, I give several speeches to groups during the course of our year at Springdale.

And I try to impress upon everybody that it's really a magnificent place.

If you haven't seen it, you have to, because there's so much going on.

In terms of people being afraid of it I think the only things that have been brought to my attention is that people would be afraid of being in the cemetery after dark.

And frankly, I would agree.

- There's nothing good - Has she been there?

- Nothing can happen in the cemetery after dark.

But in the daytime, whether it's raining or it's beautifully sunny out, it's just, again everywhere you look, there's something.

We have literally three herds of deer that I'm aware of on premises, there's birdwatchers in the cemetery, almost all the time with binoculars and cameras and camo dress.

And again, just the normal dog walkers and runners and there's a lot of activity all the time.

And of course, during the course of the day, during the week weekday, we have a strong cadre out there maintaining the cemetery and they're always available for assistance.

- And many of them are volunteers.

- Some of them are volunteers.

Yes, we have a pretty vibrant volunteer group that are a couple of different groups that come in and do different sections of the cemetery and they've adopted them.

And we do everything we can to facilitate their volunteers in that Springdale, by giving them, coffee, water support in any way they need it and so far it's worked out quite well.

- And you said that you also, another way to get people to come there is that you will welcome as a venue, a place for non-profits to come and hold fundraising runs or walks or different kinds of things.

- In matter of fact, when I got there, there was always something going on with an outside organization, but we really never participated much.

But since those things continued, we've made an effort to assist those groups with setting up a tent, Springdale Cemetery tent in the area, one or two of them having refreshments for some of these people being available to answer questions about where in the heck am I right now?

Because a lot of people you look around--- - We'll show a map and it really is.

- It's a big place.

- It's a big place.

- So we've done a lot to facilitate that and we've been very successful with the people that we help have told us that they really like that support.

- Now you also have a program.

You were telling me that you have a new computer program.

You've taken these beautifully handwritten inkwell kind of documents and loaded them into a program, but it helps you to find a grave.

So if someone in particular is looking, it assists them.

- The quick story is this.

We have always told the public that if they looking for a somebody in our 254 acres come into the office, and we will give you a map that directs you right to that site.

Recently we've changed our computer system and now we have a program called grave finder.

And very quickly, I can tell you if you go to the Springdale Cemetery website, which is springdalecemetery.com, and you look at a little symbol on the left-hand side of your screen, it says grave finder.

If you click on grave finder, you go to that and place the name.

You'll be asked for the name of the individual you're looking for place the name, last name first, then the first name, it we'll give you a schedule of who has similar last names.

And you pick the one that you're looking for.

And then when you click on that, a little box will come up and go say directions.

- [Christine] Oh my gosh.

- Click on directions and wherever you're at with your smartphone in your hand.

- [Christine] Its a GPS right there.

- Wherever you're at, it will take you to the cemetery.

And then if you zoom in, it will take you to that grave site.

And it will take you directly to the grave site, turn by turn to the site that you're looking for.

- And then you hit home to get out of there because it's a very confusing place.

- That exactly then because you haven't dropped crumbs behind you on the way in.

Then you just go ahead and say take me home now and it'll take you out of the cemetery same way.

- Wow, what's the most interesting thing that you find or that you have found or uncovered in your time there?

I mean, is there one story that sticks in your mind, particularly.

- There, really haven't been many surprises.

One of the things that I considered to be interesting, I hope you do too, is you've been to Springdale?

You know, that there's a lot of family markers and when what I'm referring to is there's a central monument and then there's grave sites around for the rest of the family members, In the last couple of years, we've been pretty successful getting back to that, that activity has kind of gone away over the last several decades.

People are now buying grades one and two for them and their spouse.

We're now over the last couple of years, we've had some success selling grave sites to families where there may be anywhere from eight individual graves with a central monument or to up to 25.

- So there's still room there after all these years, but mostly it's mausoleum type.

- No, it's all over the map.

We did install a private mausoleum just recently, as well as some major sized markers or monuments.

I'm talking 22 feet high, and that's, I'm happy to see this comeback because, we're community, all communities when they're adult children leave home, they don't always stay around, they move elsewhere and, where are you gonna be buried?

- Well, yeah and how do you make that decision?

But you were talking about, it's not a good place to be at night, but the Peoria Historical Society puts on some events around Halloween.

So it's some of the famous people who are buried there, like Lydia Moss Bradley or one of the, or maybe the revolutionary war veteran, or some of the civil war veterans, But they put on, they are right by the graveside and they represent themselves and they're they summarize lives.

- Correct and that's in cooperation with the historical society.

That's another outside group that does it's the Peoria folk or theater group that does it.

There's first two weekends in October.

As a matter of fact, I think we just had another one, a July one just recently, but the first two weekends in October those reenactments will occur.

The idea of cemeteries at night, there is one event that's done and it's done by the Illinois Valley Striders.

Every year for the last couple of years, they've been doing a trick or trot race through the cemetery.

It starts at dusk and they're finished by the time it really starts getting dark, but you should see it.

There's people that are up on hillsides.

They're running on the roads up on the hill and they've got the little lights on and you see these things bouncing.

- Right, because it's not lit there really is no place to lit.

- Correct so it's fun.

And it's happened for the last couple of years and that's, it's a good event for us and them.

- So how many more years do you think you want to do this to sustain this momentum if you will, to really bring back a cemetery to life that seems like an oxymoron.

- I haven't given it any thought I'm having a great time.

We have boards that I report to that are very involved.

They appear to love the cemetery as I do.

They appear to be supportive of and demonstrate that they're supportive of the ideas that I bring to them.

So I've been approached by other people saying, well, how long are you going to do this?

And I honestly, I don't know and I really--- - [Christine] As long as you can, - As long as I can.

- All right, well what improvements are desperately needed?

I know that you've done a lot with trying to restore some of the actual grave markers, what other improvements are needed that people might need to know about and if they're interested in helping out monetarily or even volunteer bases.

- Well we're always looking for volunteers, and we can place a volunteer with their passion.

That is if they're gardeners, I've got places that they can plant flowers, or tend to the flowers.

If they like outdoor work, we have 175 of those 254 acres that we mow every day.

We start at one end of the cemetery we go all the way around so we just keep doing it.

- [Christine] Every day?

- Every day we have five large mowers up, and we have 12 people with string trimmers, trimming in between grave markers.

So again, there's a lot of things.

We have people as a rule are generally more interested in genealogy today than they have been in decades.

So we have all of these records, a lot of those need to be protected.

We are working with somebody now to see if we can come up with a solid plan that we can do that.

That's one issue, the historic marker records.

The other thing is we have our roadway that you're somewhat familiar with, Christine.

- Because we were lost there one day.

- Our roadways are there's six miles of roads.

And of those six miles, probably two and a half miles are in pretty good shape.

The rest of them are gravel and potholed and we spend a lot of energy and some money repairing them literally every year.

But a couple of hard rainstorms or a real hard winter, it's all done and we have to start all over again.

So the roads are problematic.

And then finally, we have a couple of historic bridges that really allow people to get into two thirds of the cemetery and they're historic.

And one of them is it's passable, but we will not allow truck traffic over it.

So those are issues that we have to deal with.

- Well, thank you very much for enlightening us on this and I hope that our audience has learned a lot about Springdale and that they'll pick up the self guided tour and look up more information and get that special GPS thing on their phone so they don't get lost in there, especially if it's close to dark.

So, Mark Matousek thank you for being here the husband of Leslie Matousek our president here.

So that's a nice little connection you're supporting her as well.

- She'll be critiquing me tonight.

- Okay, well that'll be fine, I suppose let me know.

So thank you for joining us I hope you enjoyed this, stay healthy and safe.

(upbeat music)