'They were somebody one time': God leads woman to clean up Black cemeteries in Pineville

When Jaune Gagnard heard the Lord call on her to clean up the cemeteries on Hunter Street in Pineville, she answered His call.

Since December 2023, she and Kelby Hernandez have devoted their time and resources to mowing and clearing out years’ worth of overgrown brush and fallen trees.

“A couple of people have stopped and said, ‘Oh my God! It's wonderful. Thank you so much.' I'm like, ‘Oh, you're so welcome!,’" she said. "That everybody is always just so amazed why a white woman in her 60s thinks it’s something she should do. And I'm like, 'How could this be something you would not want to do?'”

They aren’t getting paid. They are only doing what God wants them to do, Gagnard said.

There are two cemeteries side by side. One is the First Union Baptist Church Cemetery and the other is the Murry Methodist Church Cemetery. Many of the graves are sunken in. Headstones and tombs have been broken by falling limbs and vandalism.

Prominent citizens are buried here

Buried out here are historical figures prominent in Central Louisiana history. Among them are J.B. Larfargue and his wife, Sarah, the founders of Peabody Magnet High School. Also buried here is Charles Page, who built the first airplane.

"He was actually born a slave in 1864, we believe. Yet, in 1898 he decided to create an airplane," said local historian Mike Wynne in a 2022 Town Talk article. Wynne said Page created a working airplane behind his home at what is now the corner of Edgewood Drive and Highway 28 East.

Linda Rhodes has family buried in the front row of the Union Baptist Church Cemetery. She said the cemeteries may look abandoned, but they are not. And it hurt her heart to see the state the cemeteries were in. Rhodes considers the cemeteries sacred because that’s where her ancestors are buried.

Her great-great grandfather, Henry Morgan, and his wife and her great-great grandmother, Josephine Barrett Morgan, are buried in the Union Baptist Church Cemetery along with a great uncle. Her great-great-great grandmother, Elsie Green (1823-1898), who was a slave, is also buried next to them.

“She was a slave that ran away with a white man’s son. His father gave her to him,” Rhodes wrote in a text.

Both her great-great-great grandmother’s headstone and her great-uncle's headstone were vandalized and broken years ago.

Then one day, Rhodes happened to come upon Gagnard cleaning the cemeteries as she drove past.

For years, it bothered Rhodes that the cemeteries were neglected, and she even wanted to pay for someone to clean them up. She regularly goes to see Gagnard and Hernandez to document the cleanup on social media. She even offered them a donation. 

When was Gagnard called upon to do this?

“In 2020, the Lord laid it on my heart and showed me the graveyard. I was driving past, and it was during COVID, and showed me the graveyard,” Gagnard said.

Her reaction upon seeing them for the first time was, “Ohhh!”

But timing is everything, and the Lord had a message for her.

“I literally heard Him say, ‘Not right now.’ So I said, ‘Okay.’”

In the meantime, she cleaned up the Old Rapides Parish Cemetery located on Hattie Street in Pineville.

“So, I cleaned that whole thing and then brought pictures to Rich Dupree,” she said. “And Rich, said, ‘You know, that's owned by the city of Pineville and we're technically supposed to be keeping it up.’ So when he became mayor, he assigned someone and now they keep it up beautifully. But in the meantime, I got it very detailed. Made it much easier.”

Gagnard met Hernandez in a prayer group. He was working at the apartments on the corner of Hunter Street next to the cemeteries and asked if she had seen them. She told him she had.

"And I heard the Lord say, ‘It's time,’” Gagnard said.

On Dec. 3, 2023, she and Hernandez began the cleanup.

“He comes out with me on Sundays because that's his only free day,” said Gagnard, who is a seamstress. “But I come out a couple of days, a couple of mornings a week and for a few hours before I open for business.”

They’ve uncovered graves that “probably haven’t been exposed in forever,” Gagnard said.

“You'll have to come back and take pictures when this is done, because there's some pretty large monuments in there that only God knows when they last saw daylight,” she said.

She pointed out two sunken graves both filled with water from recent rains.

“Like I dug those two out over there that look like little swimming pools,” she said. “They're about four and a half, five inches deep. They’ve sunk and sunk and sunk.”

Uncovered hidden marble headstone of WWI soldier

They also found a marble headstone in perfect condition belonging to Jefferson Hinson, a World War I soldier who was a private in the cavalry.

“It was fun to find this guy, because I didn't even know that was there,” she said walking towards the headstone. “This one right here. Beautiful marble. This was very expensive in 1917 to have that erected.”

Then she walks over to another grave.

“And then when I found Catherine’s right there, you couldn't even see it. And I cleaned it up and let the rain do a little bit more to it,” she said.

They dug around the grave to see if there was a barrier wall and how far it went. Catherine’s isn’t included in its border.

As they mow and clear out the brush, more and more stones are being exposed.

“Like this section hasn't been touched in probably 15 to 20 years. So, we're just taking our time, moseying along. This is a marathon. It's not a sprint,” she said.

The thought of tackling such a large task as cleaning this area looks overwhelming, but not for Gagnard.

"I did the Rapides Cemetery, and it’s much bigger than this one,” she said. “And just slow and steady. There’s an old gospel hymn, the song is ‘Little Is Much When God Is In It.’ And God Always supplies whatever I need.”

For instance, she and Hernandez found a tomb with a huge hole on one side with what appeared to be a human femur sticking out. They wanted to repair it but didn’t have the expertise to do the project.

An answer to prayers

She prayed on it, and God answered with Tom Bradfield, one of her customers. She was altering pants for him.

“As I'm helping him down the stairs, because he had a stroke a couple years ago, I hear the Lord say, ‘Ask him what he did before his stroke,’” she said.

She asked, and Bradfield told her he was a concrete and brick mason.

"I said, ‘Do you do little jobs?’ And he goes, ‘I do, and I can't do big jobs anymore.’”

She told him about the tomb and he told her that for her, he would repair it for free.

"We're sealing, he's sealing it up today. Kelby’s playing with concrete, because he's never done that before. And he's like me. He loves to learn new stuff,” she said.

Every week they try to do what they can and watch their progress.

“If we've done all of this in two months, we should be all the way to the other side in two more months,” she said. “But we're trying to beat the heat, because you have to dress so heavily when you do this because the stickers and thorns are unbelievable.”

The only critters they’ve encountered are baby snakes and turtles.

“And there's a couple of cats that live there. Early in the morning, they run around to me. And apparently, we have some deer living up in there,” she said.

Gagnard and Hernandez don’t intend to keep cleaning up the cemeteries once they are finished.

“I'm praying that once we get it cleaned, then God's going to send somebody like he did for when I did the Rapides Cemetery,” she said.

Rhodes has also been trying to find people or a group willing to maintain the cemeteries once the cleanup process is done in a couple of months.

“All these graves, all these souls, they were somebody one time,” said Gagnard. “And they still matter. So we just do our part."

This article originally appeared on Alexandria Town Talk: Woman says God called on her to clean up Black cemeteries in Pineville