Historical reenactors guide visitors through the Mt. Olivet Cemetery this weekend and tell tales from Buena Vista's history along the way.
The cemetery tours are a fundraiser by the Buena Vista Heritage Foundation. The first tour took place in 2004 and was the brainchild of former executive director Kathi Perry.
Sue Kelly is a founding member of Buena Vista Heritage Foundation and helped Perry develop the cemetery tours.
“She had read a lot of history of the different people who are buried out here. Every small town — every town — but small towns in particular have people who knew people when they lived here.”
“So as you walk through the cemetery, you'll come up on somebody dressed in a costume,” said Kelly.
The guide this year is played by Pam Gonzalez. "She'll say, ‘Oh my goodness, look who's here. I didn't know we were going to get to see you tonight.' And then they tell their story, whoever they are.”
“That's the unfortunate fallout of an incident with a fellow bottom of mine,” said Hall as Madam Elizabeth 'One-eyed Liz' Sturgeon. “Seems she didn't like how successful my parlor house was becoming. So, she came in one night, got the men especially drunk and riled up and fighting, and I took a wine bottle to the side of the head.”
Nancy Locke plays Byrd Fuqua in the tour. Fuqua was known for being eccentric.
“We went out hunting for a mountain lion, and sure enough, we captured a live mountain lion. Well, we took that mountain lion into Buena Vista and were showing him off.”
Locke has a personal connection to the character through the child Fuqua almost adopted, Jane Ellen Kettering. “She taught my girls dance and lived right down the corner street from me,” she said.
These are some of the voices you'll hear on the lantern cemetery tour from the Buena Vista Heritage Foundation. It takes place Saturday, October 18, at the Mt. Olivet Cemetery at 7 p.m.
