Headstones return to cemetery after 30 years missing

By Leah Rainwater

After 30 years missing, two stolen headstones have returned to their resting place at a local cemetery.

Kurt Jordan, also known as the “KC Cemetery Man”, has been working on preserving Greenwick Cemetery in Amazonia, Missouri, for about five years. The driving factor for his preservation work started because of his father. Jordan’s great-great grandfather is buried in the 19th-century cemetery, along with two great-great uncles.

“My dad discovered the cemetery,” Jordan said. “And he said, ‘I found the cemetery with our family, you know, we have family members buried here.’”

Jordan has pieced together almost 180 years’ worth of history, restoring wear and tear from weather on headstones at the cemetery.

A call in early November brought him a few more pieces to the puzzle. The headstone tablets of Solomon Adams and Charles Jinkins were returned to Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in St. Joseph. They had been missing for about 30 years.

“I didn’t even know they were missing,” said Jordan. “I’ve done a lot of work out here. I’ve reset more than 100 tablets and obelisks out here.”

The stones took a detour while away from the cemetery.

“They were used as props in a haunted house for a number of years,” Jordan said.

This fact was something Jordan learned from an anonymous source, who reported it to a church official.

The tablets were given to Jordan so he could place them in their original resting spots, including one for Charles’ Jinkins wife, Elizabeth.

“Some old documentation from the 1870s indicated that all three were right here in this area, next to each other, as they are sitting now,” he said.

Jordan said he’s happy the tablets were returned so he can continue to put pieces of the Greenwick Cemetery puzzle back together.