Tiny graveyard is perfect burial place for some

VIRGINIA BEACH

Sandwiched within Diamond Springs Road, a Food Lion shopping center and 7-Eleven is a small swath of land dotted with headstones.

Some are polished and new. Others are faded, chipped or hidden beneath overgrown brush.

It is not the greenest resting place or the quietest. Cars whiz by and shopping carts clang in the parking lot. Plastic bags and discarded food wrappers mingle with knee-high weeds.

And there's no sign - only a partial wooden fence that is broken in places.

But the tiny graveyard at Ebenezer Cemetery is the final resting place for more than 40 people who have been buried there in the past century.

Ebenezer Baptist Church, the city's oldest black congregation, owns the half-acre cemetery. Both have been part of the Bayside scenery for nearly 150 years, said Pastor Terron Rodgers.

Some chose the cemetery because they loved Ebenezer Baptist, which is a mile away on Baker Road, Rodgers said.

That is why Wanda Jatta is buried there. The 68-year-old retired teacher was an active member of the church before she died in 2006, said her sister, Cynthia Harold.

"I knew that she loved the church and they loved her," she said.

Jatta's plot faces the parking lot shared by Food Lion and Braids R Us hair salon. Someone had planted honeysuckle next to the concrete slab inscribed with her name.

Others chose Ebenezer Cemetery because they wanted to be buried with family, said the Rev. Ray Dempsey, an associate minister who helps maintain the graveyard.

Norfolk Judge William O. Hawkins Sr. was buried there next to his parents in 2005. Nearby are rows and clusters of graves belonging to members of the Roberts, Elliott and Goodman families.

Others chose the location because they couldn't afford to be buried elsewhere, Rodgers said.

"Members of the church who can't afford to go to more expensive cemeteries have the option to be buried at the Ebenezer Cemetery," he said. "It's a blessing financially for them to have that option."

Family members provided the silk flowers and American flags that adorn some of the graves, Dempsey said. He and a few other volunteers cut the grass.

But Dempsey said he wants to do more.

He said he is worried that some of the cemetery's remains may have been disturbed as the area developed. He wants to dig up city records detailing who is buried there to make sure every grave is marked.

He also is working to obtain a sign for the cemetery.

The youngest resident appears to be 15-month-old L.L. Wills, who died in 1919. The oldest seems to be Viola E. Roberts, 93, who died in 2004.

Some of the headstones are too faded to read.

Vines and dirt obscure the oldest legible marker, which sits alone at the edge of the cemetery. The slab is cracked in three pieces, and the name has disappeared.

Though the landscape has changed, the date of death - 1914 - and inscription - "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord" - have survived.

Kathy Adams, (757) 222-5155, kathy.adams@pilotonline.com