Elkins Pointe Students Get their Hands on History

Next to a busy road, underneath the leaves and brush, lies a story – hundreds of them, actually. And the Elkins Pointe Middle School History Club is making sure they aren’t forgotten.

Upon learning about the prospect of finding unmarked graves in the Old Roswell Cemetery off Woodstock Road, club organizers and teachers Andrew Irvin and Joe Wilson knew they had found the perfect project for their students.

“They are excited and roaring to go,” said Irvin of the project. “I guess any time you mention cemeteries, and I hate to say it, but, corpses, you are going to grab kids' attention.”

Last week the club met with representatives from the Roswell Historical Society and learned how to find and mark graves going back as far as the Civil War. The graves are thought to have fallen into disrepair and anonymity over the years due to vandalism, as well as passing of time and death of those who were charged with the responsibility of keeping the sites kept up.

“No one was left behind to pull weeds, scrape moss and algae off the marker and so forth,” said Irvin.

For that reason, last Saturday morning, Irvin and Wilson took their students to the cemetery to find and mark what could be dozens of unmarked graves based upon what they learned from the historical society.

“Basically anytime you see a depression in the ground and it happens to be about the size of a body, then chances are, remains are buried there,” Irvin said. “Either the original marker, which could have been as simple as a rock or a piece of wood, basically disintegrated over time, or the family of the deceased was simply too poor to put anything in the ground to mark the grave. [It’s] sad.”

It was an ideal way to turn a love of history into something useful for the relatively new club of about 40 students. The club was something that had only existed in the imaginations and ambitions of Irvin and Wilson until they received permission to move forward with its creation last fall, said Irvin, who is an admitted “history nut.”

He blames his love of all things historical on his father, a former high school history teacher from California. “He had a huge influence on helping me to ‘bring history to life’ in the classroom with the kids. It's in my DNA I guess.”

Irvin and Wilson hope that through the club they can share their love of history with students and “educate kids about the ground beneath their feet, literally.”