Save these Graves: Chanate Historic Cemetery

The Chanate Historic Cemetery is located on Chanate Road in Santa Rosa, California. The cemetery is on the south side of Chanate Road, immediately across the street from Sutter Medical Center. While Chanate Cemetery holds a portion with pretty commemorative plaques and states they have been under restoration since 2003, “not so” say many Californians attempting to find the location of their loved ones at Chanate.

Many people searching for their interned family have been faced with frustration and no mater what channels they appear to go through, get no where. It is my understanding people are being told the cemetery does not even exist. There are no existing markers. Most of those interned were Asian (placed there through prejudice of the time period, indigents, criminals, those who died at the county hospital, paupers, plague victims, and the insane. And sadly it is due to this sort of “paupers” internment that records were not properly kept by the officials who were in charge of doing so; inquiries to hospitals, county clerk and records have all lead nowhere for many families. The cemetery itself is riddled with weeds and poison oak and getting even that handled has been an impossible brick wall. No administrative or state office is claiming ownership, nor is the County or city.

I wonder if it possible, if enough people get involved if these records will show up. I wonder if a university would have any interest in being involved with acts of kindness in the form of ground radar. I do not have any answers, though I wish I did. I have been in similar predicament when it comes to old family plots in the south which were forgotten by those who have no ancestral interest in its preservation. Thus I would love to join/form a group of others seeking- maybe then someone with the power to get to the bottom of this will listen and act in kind.

Below I have transcribed a list forwarded to me of the names of many interned; unfortunately families who are already aware their ancestors are buried there are actually seeking to know WHERE the burial placement is- which seems to be the saddest part for those who wish to mark said graves.

Cemetery in Parking Lot?

I was forwarded information about a small cemetery in Hattiesburg Mississippi, which is located in the middle of a parking lot. As far as explained to me, its protected and taken care of yet the apartment builders were not given permission by the county to move the graves, so it was left as is. Now THAT’S interesting!

The cemetery originally belonged to the Bryant family and the last known burial was 1916.