Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, November 18, 1995                   TAG: 9511200022
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: BETTY HAYDEN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

NEW SHELTER TO LEND DIGNITY, PROTECTION TO BURIALS OF POOR

Leon Hall got the idea three weeks ago while handling a graveside service at the Roanoke City Cemetery.

It was a miserable morning, the Oakey's Funeral Service employee remembers, with rain and mud making a sad occasion more unpleasant for the family of the deceased.

Hall decided the city-operated cemetery for the poor needed a shelter - not just for protection from the elements but also to lend some dignity to the services held there.

"It may mean very little to a lot of people, but it will mean a lot to a few," Hall said at a ribbon-cutting ceremony Friday afternoon at the cemetery, off U.S. 460 on Coyner Springs Road in Botetourt County.

"This shows what one dream can do when it becomes a little more than a dream," said the Rev. Frank Feather of Forest Park Baptist Church, who performs most of the services at the cemetery.

The new shelter will bring "dignity - that's the beauty of it," Feather said.

The poor deserve a decent burial, Hall said, and as the late John Oakey once told him, "Afford [all clients] the same respect you would the mayor."

Wayne Harris maintains the building and grounds at the city's nursing home, up the road from the cemetery. He also mows the cemetery and digs all the graves - about 30 a year. He's attended most of the services held in the past 23 years - he can't remember missing any - and sometimes he and the funeral home staff were the only ones there, besides the minister, he said.

He said the shelter was a great idea that will mean a lot to the families of people buried at the cemetery.

Others who attended the ceremony echoed Harris' sentiments and praised Hall for putting the project together so quickly.

Hall said he doesn't want to take all the credit for an effort that involved the cooperation of local businesses and the city. Anchor Sales sold the 12-by-21-foot shelter to Oakey's at cost. A city paving crew laid an asphalt base under the shelter, and Plantation Nursery planted shrubs around it.

Although the shelter project is completed, Hall said he's not finished. He said he'd like to see about getting some gravel for the dirt road leading into the cemetery. People have trouble using it during wet weather.