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Woman works for two decades to maintain Oak Ridge cemetery

Connie Hackworth has worked for nearly two decades to voluntarily maintain a cemetery. Now, she's looking for whoever owns it.

For 21 years, an Oliver Springs woman has volunteered to take care of a small cemetery in Oak Ridge.

East Fork Cemetery sits on Newcastle Lane off of Oak Ridge Turnpike.

She has no idea who owns the land, and is worried about what might happen if she can't take care of it anymore.

"When he passed away in 1997, that's when I continued to do it," Connie Hackworth said.

Hackworth first came to this cemetery as a little girl to help clean up.

"My uncle, Raymond Freels. As a young child I came over here and helped him," Hackworth said. "I do all the weed-eating, all the flowers that need to go to the garbage dump, I take those to the garbage dump. I'm always trimming. It's a lot of work. A lot of work."

She voluntarily takes care of the cemetery.

It includes about 100 graves. Some date back to the 1800s.

"I'm just getting too old," Hackworth said.

She says her drive and her wallet won't go much longer.

"I want somebody in here to put it in stone who's going to maintain it in the rest of the time I'm alive," Hackworth said.

She doesn't know who owns the land.

The Department of Energy says it did own the land, but it was transferred to what is now called the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in 1955.

The Roane County Register of Deeds Office provided 10News with documented history of the land.

The government deeded the land to John Wheeler in December of 1956.

His family then gave the land to Cumberland Homes Inc. in May of 1959.

That's the last time the property changed hands.

Cumberland Homes built the neighborhood around the cemetery.

But Roane County Historian Robert Bailey says finding anyone who worked for the company now would be difficult.

"They probably, like a lot of development companies, they're probably not around," Bailey said. "We're talking about the 1950s, so we're talking about 60 years ago."

If you want to help Hackworth out, give her a call at 865-363-5590.

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