Memorial Day is coming up and we will be paying a visit to Confederates Rest Cemetary in Madison, WI. This is the most northerly confederate cemetary and is the final resting place primarily for almost exclusivly soldiers from the 1st Alabama Regiment. There are also some men from TN,and AR. The flag pole is TERRIBLY rusty, the flag rope is old and gray, bits-o- ducktape and rusty locks. the plots need new grass seeds,and flowers. The memorial placed there in 1981 by a man whose father and grandfather were in the war is crooked!! What gives??

Before I contact the City of Madison, WI I am writing to make some contact with others who have been in a similar situation. I love my city of Madison, I know there are economic issues, but looking at the brilliant white marbles of the Union soldiers, it seems some cleaning up of their marble was done. I think gravestones in general need to be tended, and washing may make them more porous..so the fact that the confederate gravestones are natually weathered is not a problem. The Confederate Rest Cemetary is not unkempt, but it is not as nice as it could be. Can I join anyone involved in cemetary upkeep?

I have heirloom naturalizing daffodils from my family in Arkanss carried from North Carolina to Alabama then to Arkansas in the last 200 years and now up to Wisconsin that cold be used for spring plantings. (By the way, these southern heirloom daffodils are the earliest to come up here..as early as mid February in the snow) Since most of the men at Confederates Rest are from Alabama, we could also use ideas for plantings from that state that could survive here.