Everyone who knows him, knows Doug Bruggeman is a smart-alecky sort of guy.

Saturday, September 18, 1999

Everyone who knows him, knows Doug Bruggeman is a smart-alecky sort of guy. Ask him a question and he never replies with a straight answer.

Of course, Lynette, his wife, is a lot like her husband. She has a keen sense of humor too. Just try keeping up with the zingers they sling back and forth.

And, when their friend, Ann Leek, joins them, nobody is safe. She is just as bad or good – Depending on one’s point of view – at deflating egos, puncturing balloons of self-indulgence and humanizing other too-self-important people who come within their range.

There’s no telling what her husband, Bruce, is like.

The Bruggemans and the Leeks live in Udolpho Township, where their friendship has grown since the first time they met.

Neighbors know them to be "dangerous" in a friendly sort of way. They are notorious for their practical jokes. Leave home and when you return, there may be a sign advertising cattle or sheep for sale with a person’s telephone number printed there for the world to see.

The Bruggemans’ farmyard is a testament to how far their sense of humor travels. There are signs, telling visitors where to park and where not to park. Special guests have their reserved parking spots.

Also, there are rules of engagement. According to Doug, the only way to get his wife to stop talking is to wave a red handkerchief in her face. Lynette’s version is somewhat different than her husband’s.

They like company. People stop on their way home from work, to have coffee or just to share the latest news.

Visit the Bruggemans at milking time and prepare to be entertained. The milking parlor isn’t exactly Applebee’s Neighborhood Bar and Grille, but the laughter is genuine, the conversation lively and the refreshments from the refrigerator cold.

There may be no other three people more comfortable with who they are and where they are in life. "Carefree" only begins to describe these happy people.

The mystery is, "Why are these out-spoken, fun-loving adults so interested in a cemetery?"

Even at the mention of this question, Doug refuses to turn completely serious. "I just like it. It needs attention and because, I’m just morbid, I guess," he said.

Pressed for a more serious answer, he said, "I’ve farmed around there all these years and it’s kind of off the road and out of sight. It’s just something I like to do."

Whatever the reason, the Bruggemans and the Leeks, as well as their children, have taken it upon themselves to help restore historic Udolpho Cemetery.

They cut the grass, rake leaves, trim trees and remove deadfall, clear snow in the winter, paint the fence, ensure the electric light works and keep the record books.

They also are mapping the 145 plots, collecting as much information about the deceased as they can and otherwise restoring a cemetery that is 137 years old.

And, they added a flag.

Since 1926, Bruggemans have lived on the farm where Doug and Lynette now live and raise dairy cows. Doug took it over in 1994 from his parents, Clifford and Betty, who lived next to the cemetery, where their son and Doug’s brother, David and his wife, Cheryl, and their family now live.

The Doug Bruggemans have three sons, Bryan, 16, Jim, 14, and Brad, 10.

Lynette is the daughter of Rollie and Sonya Martin of Austin.

Ann and Bruce Leek live near Brookside Campgrounds along County No. 1. Bruce is a Udolpho Township supervisor.

Ann and Lynette knew each other when they lived in Austin and attended classes at Austin High School.

"It seemed like an interesting thing to do, when I heard Lynette and Doug talking about it," said Ann.

"We’re all like one big happy family out here, so getting involved in something like this is only natural for all of us," Lynette said.

Doug’s father, Clifford, made the new sign that adorns the front gate at the cemetery and Doug put in the light that illuminates it.

The last people buried in Udolpho Cemetery were George and Frank Winn earlier this year, who were great-uncles of Doug Bruggeman.

The requirement for burial in the cemetery is that one must have lived in Udolpho Township.

There have been two burials in Udolpho Township this year, as well as one in 1996 and one in 1993.

The township owns the cemetery and is in charge of it. Dale and Casey Renchin, father and son, are hired by the township to maintain the cemetery grounds, the Bruggemans and Leeks have taken it upon themselves to rescue the cemetery from whatever unintended evil lurks.

They are also doing it for their families.

They are sharing the history with their children.

The Bruggemans have kin buried there and they will also someday lay beneath the grave digger’s dirt.

"We’ve got our plots there. That’s where we’re going to be buried," said Doug.

With 145 plots filled and space for another 280, there should be room enough for the people who care so much about the cemetery.

Udolpho Cemetery was purchased in February 1862 for $10,000 from Solomon Wilcox by Francis A. Neller, whose wife had died.

The first person buried in the cemetery was Hoser Sprent, who died June 4, 1862 at the age of 67, according to the Mower County Historical Society.

Mrs. Wilcox was the second to be buried there.

Located west of Mower County No. 1 and north of the Cedar River, the cemetery in Section 21 is surrounding by farm fields and pine trees. The cemetery is the final resting place of a local celebrity of sorts.

Henry Bagley, wealthy land-owner and officer in the Union Army during the Civil War is buried there with his wife, Rachel, and their six children.

The Bruggemans and Leek are obsessed with their work.

The dining table is their office, when the cemetery becomes a topic of conversation.

They have history books, cemetery records, newspaper clippings and more.

They have become regulars at Austin Public Library, researching names on tombstones, as well as other libraries in the area.

The Bagley family is the most intriguing name on a tombstone.

"Folks don’t know the Colonel only served three months in the Civil War," said Doug.

That revelation is even more surprising, when one comes upon the huge statue erected in Colonel Bagley’s image. Next to it is his wife, Rachel’s gravel and it, too, has a statue. This one is an angel kneeling with hands clasped in prayer and her face turned toward the Colonel.

A poem is inscribed on the tombstone which is part farewell from the Colonel to his wife and from the wife to the Colonel.

The Bruggemans and Leek have reprinted the poem and displayed it for all to read.

According to the trio’s research, the cemetery’s unique name came from a book entitled "The Mysteries of Udolpho" about which nothing is known.

The obituary research of the two women has yielded an insight to what their female peers endured on the Minnesota prairie both in life and death.

Ann Leek marvels at how obituaries were written a century ago about men and another way about women.

She is a mother of two, David, 11, and Danielle, 9, and helps her husband on the family’s crops and hog farm and the disparity of information among males and females shocks her.

"The length of obituaries is the first hint," Leek said. "The women’s are short, very short, and they don’t use first names. The men’s are long and real flowery with all sorts of information in them."

For example, she pointed to a reference in one women’s obituary that included the notation "It will be a month since her husband died."

The research also yielded the story of how a teenage boy, age 15, shot and killed his 17 year old sister with his .22 caliber rifle while the siblings were arguing over pennies in 1907.

Leek went so far as to locate a survivor of the deceased’s family and to share the story.

Other families are involved with the extracurricular cemetery restoration work. Namely, David and Cheryl Bruggeman and Bob and Mike Harber, father and son.

Truth be told, the three-some of Doug and Lynette Bruggeman and Ann Leek do more than anyone else. The two families’ children join the adults for major clean-up, fix-up work at the cemetery. The Leeks children erected a wooden cross to be displayed at the cemetery at Easter.

Milking cows for a living would, most people would agree, is work enough for the Bruggemans. Raising hogs and growing crops, too, is labor enough for the Leeks. In addition, there the parents’ children to be raised.

Still, the trio of adults literally leaves no stone unturned in their Udolpho Cemetery efforts.

"We want to do what we can to the tombstones, but all we can do is a little bit at a time, so it will take quite awhile," Doug said.

As to their reasons for taking the rural cemetery to heart and working so long and hard to ensure it is preserved for all ages, their answers shed little light.

"I just think it is important. It’s a hobby to me," Doug said, this time avoiding any comical remark.

"Eventually, I’ll be buried there and I hope somebody else will want to keep up the cemetery, too. There’s a lot of history there," Leek said.

That left Lynette to put the summertime obsession into perspective.

"A cemetery has a lot to do with friends and family and knowing where you came from and giving you a sense of where you belong. This cemetery does that," Lynette said.

There’s nothing so disturbing as a country cemetery gone forgotten. When grass and weeds over-grow tombstones, it’s an obscenity. When tombstones crumble with age or worse, it’s a tragedy. When it goes ignored, it is a crushing blow.

Three friends, who are linked as much by their combined senses of humor and a common interest in things … well …. morbid, as the smart-alecky one would say, are doing what they can to prevent the unthinkable from happening to a tiny cemetery. There’s is a rare form of perpetual care.

"You feel good when you do something like this. It gives you a sense of accomplishment," she said.

That may also be another reason why the Colonel and his wife and their children and all the others are resting in peace at Udolpho Cemetery.

 

(Editor’s Note: Anyone interested in assisting in the preservation of Udolpho Township Cemetery may call the Doug and Lynette Bruggeman family at (507) 437-1635 or the Bruce and Ann Leek family at (507-583-7240.)