Published: August 31, 2005 01:23 am            

Finding family graves in Noble just got easier

NOBLE — Finding Grandma has never been easier. Last week, members of Noble’s IOOF Lodge 128 completed work on a new interactive directory, complete with a map of every filled plot.



The Noble IOOF cemetery, on Highway 77, is the second in the state to house such technology, with the other in Elk City.



The new directory, encased in a sturdy and weather-resistant brick wall, makes a former day’s work of laboriously criss-crossing the 20-acre cemetery obsolete. A quick stroke of the hands over the sensors sends the cemetery rosters spinning, making it easy to discern exactly where Aunt Harriette, Second Cousin Jimmy or Daddy was laid to rest.



It wasn’t until genealogical buff and Norman resident Evelyn Parker spotted similar machines in a Burlington, Colo., cemetery that the Noble Lodge was aware of the technology. Jotting down manufacturers’ information and returning to Norman, Parker made it her mission to outfit one of her “favorite little cemeteries” with the Windy Prairie Structures and Systems device, she said.



“I think that if someone is coming (to the Noble Cemetery) from out of town, like myself for example, I know where my daughter-in-law is buried. But say someone is from out of town and they say, ‘Well grandma’s buried here and I want to visit her,’ they can see, well, she’s right up here in this row and go find the grave,” Parker said. “It’s amazing.”



Lodge Secretary Ronnie Smith said visitors have been thrilled with the machine which was completed last Wednesday.



“You have so many people interested in genealogy nowadays and now they can come out here to the cemetery and find who they are looking for without having to call one of us,” Smith said. “Everybody that’s seen it so far thinks it’s the greatest thing that’s ever happened to Noble.”



Working with the lodge, Parker began inputting information about each of the estimated 2,800 cemetery residents and their mapped location. In a two-year process, Lodge members and others from the community donated money to the cause, eventually raising the necessary $12,000 to purchase the machine.



Every two to three years, machine rollers will be updated with new cemetery additions, said Noble Grand Elza Harris, but a complete list of recent cemetery burials will be displayed in a glass display box adjacent to the machine.



Melissa A. Wabnitz

366-3550

mwabnitz@normantranscript.com

        

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