“You don’t like to see cemeteries go into ruin, and we saw a lot of cemeteries around us that weren’t well kept up so we – me and a few other people – just started fixing them up when we had time,” Quigley said.

In 2023, Quigley and local volunteers worked on restoring their first abandoned cemetery, the Baden Cemetery near Coulee. This cemetery is also known as the Falk Cemetery, or Baden-Falk Cemetery. One of the oldest gravestones at the cemetery is from 1903 and belonged to Herman Edward Falk, thus the nickname of Falk Cemetery.

After Quigley and his team restored what they could, a family decided to further restore Baden-Falk and have their father buried at the cemetery, which was the first burial the cemetery had seen in a long time.

The East Opdahl Cemetery in Divide County, near rural Wildrose of Williams County, is another abandoned cemetery Quigley and his team are working to restore. The cemetery has gravestones dating to 1909.

A metal marker is shown encased in a square of cement at East Opdahl Cemetery in Divide County. The metal marker was placed and encased by Bryan Quigley during the cemetery’s restoration.

“We have volunteers. We don’t do it all,” Quigley said. “I had three volunteers from the Wildrose area that were working with us on this cemetery.”

Tree removal, stone setting and straightening, marking graves, leveling soil and mowing are just some of the tasks Quigley and the other volunteers must do when restoring a cemetery.

For this purpose, Quigley is in charge of a cemetery trailer containing the tools and machinery needed for the job.

“Essentially, the ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) bought the trailer with donations and mission funds. Then I applied for a grant from Kenmare-Vets’ Gaming for all the tools and they funded the tools, lawnmower and all that. That was three years ago, so we’re just kind of getting geared up,” Quigley said.

The trailer also includes tree trimmers, chainsaws and other items the team might need for restoring a cemetery.

For the restoration of the East Opdahl Cemetery, two Bobcats had to be brought to the cemetery in addition to the cemetery trailer. The Bobcats were used for tree removal and removal of lilac and caragana bushes.

“We had to find the stones, and a lot of the stones were buried in the trees,” Quigley said.

In Kenmare’s Lakeview Cemetery, Quigley removed the caragana bushes and trees that had completely overtaken a headstone more than 5 feet tall.

After the trees are removed, the ground must be re-leveled and holes filled in with soil. Other holes in the soil are caused by gophers and badgers.

“Well, badgers like to dig out gophers. Gophers go in the hole and the badgers dig after them and they create a big mound of dirt wherever they go and they can dig faster than you can with a shovel,” Quigley said. “If you get too many holes and get too many badgers digging around in a cemetery, they get a little difficult to mow.”

Once the ground has been leveled and the grasses mowed, Quigley can start placing metal markers on graves that do not have headstones or footstones.

“The cemetery makes the metal markers that they put on a grave when they do the first burial. Then they later usually put a stone on, marking the grave, and they move (the metal marker) or remove it,” Quigley said. “So we take those and we make other markers for folks that are unmarked.”

Quigley then sets the metal markers in cement.

“It’s a 16-inch square piece of cement that sits down at ground level, and it has the name of the person, the year they were born and the year they died,” he said.

Marking the graves also requires research to find out who was buried where and the details of their births and deaths. Quigley tries to find local researchers in the area to help uncover these details.

“We have a person over in Powers Lake, Larry Tinjum, that does a lot of research and he’ll tell us about the graves,” Quigley said. “He’s our Powers Lake guy. But I have a guy that does a lot of our Kenmare stuff.”

John Mogren is a researcher and genealogist Quigley works closely with, primarily for Kenmare’s Pioneer Village.

Mogren had helped a couple of the Mennonite faith from Arkansas find information about their ancestors from the Kenmare area. Mogren helped the couple find records of their ancestors’ funerals and their family homestead. Additionally, Quigley took the couple to Springbrook Mennonite Cemetery so they could visit their ancestors’ graves.

Quigley prefers to tap the locals of a given area for information about graves and family history where cemeteries are concerned. Some graves remain unknown even after research has been conducted.

“Every cemetery has some unknown and unmarked graves,” Quigley said. “Sometimes they’re unknown and sometimes they’re unmarked. Sometimes the best you can do is get as close as you can.”

Another piece of cemetery restoration has to do with the titles of the cemeteries. Murray Sagsveen is retired but volunteers his time with the Western North Dakota Senate of the ELCA.

“He’s been working to clean up titles on the cemeteries and churches,” Quigley said. Sagsveen makes sure church and cemetery titles are clean so the association can receive mineral payments. Clean titles mean clear ownership.

“In order for cemeteries that are in oil country to get royalties, they have to have clean titles. So often they don’t, so that money just sits with the oil company. It never gets paid out,” Quigley said. “So once you get the title cleaned up, then the oil company will start paying the cemetery association, or whatever is set up, to receive those payments.”

Most cemeteries have a cemetery association that takes care of and maintains the cemetery. However, each cemetery association and cemetery is different.

“Lakeview was actually owned by the City of Kenmare, so the city has to budget for mowing the Lakeview Cemetery. One of the other cemeteries we’ve worked on in Kenmare is owned by the township, and the township has to figure out how to mow it a few times every year,” Quigley said.

“Coulee has a cemetery association. They do the mowing in Baden-Falk, starting last year, and the Coulee cemetery,” Quigley said. Even though the Baden-Falk Cemetery technically rests in Ward County, Coulee of Mountrail County is nearby and has taken responsibility for the Baden-Falk Cemetery.

Sagsveen also tells Quigley where to go for cemetery restoration projects.

“Murray is the one that tells me about the abandoned ones that need work. I pick up other ones on my own too,” Quigley said.

A September project this year for Quigley and his team is in the Powers Lake area of Burke County. However, the cemetery restoration is for a parish service project instead of the ELCA. Quigley’s parish includes four churches – one in Powers Lake, one in Battleview, and two rural Kenmare churches. The annual service projects are for “God’s Work, Our Hands Day.”

One year, Quigley’s parish renovated an apartment in Kenmare for its service project. Last year the parish raised money to renovate old apartments in Powers Lake. This year, the parish churches agreed to restore cemeteries for their service project.

“Essentially, my life revolves around service. I serve the community, I serve my neighbors,” Quigley said about his volunteer efforts in restoring cemeteries as well as his work with Kenmare’s Pioneer Village.