FAIRFIELD, Utah — When Cameron Carson visited the Fairfield
Cemetery with his grandfather, he noticed the cemetery was filled with
rocks instead of headstones.
Truth was the headstones, which were made of sandstone, had eroded away over time.
"I
had known that my grandfather wanted to buy headstones for a lot of his
ancestors that were buried there, but that soon became illogical
because of the expense," Carson said.
Three
years ago, the South Jordan, Utah resident took on the problem as his Eagle
Scout project. He designed a monument for the cemetery, with a plaque
displaying the 145 names, birth and death dates of those buried in the
cemetery between 1855 and 1950.
__IMAGE1__Carson
designed the monument based on a similar one at the Lehi Sugar Factory,
and used AutoCAD architectural software to draw up the plans. Many of
those buried in Fairfield Cemetery are Carson's relatives.
"There are about 47 Carsons on the plaque," he said. One of those, William H. Carson, was one of the founders of Fairfield.
Carson
spent months checking the names and dates against both Fairfield's
records and the individual headstones in the cemetery, finding three
more people in the cemetery than on the records.
And
while working with Novacolor, the company that made the plaque, Carson
had to go through the entire proofreading process again.
"I always found two or three mistakes from them moving things around," he said.
One
of Carson's struggles was finding financial support for the project.
Novacolor provided a discount for the plaque, and Owell Precast
discounted the monument itself.
__IMAGE2__"I
made what seemed like about 1,000 phone calls," he said. "I talked to
hundreds of companies in the Salt Lake Valley to find sponsorship. It
was actually really hard to do that. When I was doing this it was right
at the beginning of the recession."
Despite
most businesses cutting back or eliminating their charitable donation
programs, the Mormon Historic Sites Foundation donated $1,200 to the
project. Kenneth Mays, a foundation trustee, provided a photograph for
the monument.
Carson also found support in Fairfield's mayor, Lynn Gillies.
"Cameron
has taken on himself something that no one else has thought about,"
Gillies said. "He has brought to life those people who were in the
shadows in the cemetery into the light. With their names inscribed on
that plaque, they will never be forgotten."
Now
19 years old, Carson has spent the last year waiting for the monument
and plaque to be completed. He leaves for a Mormon mission to Sofia,
Bulgaria, on March 24. Both the monument and the plaque were unveiled
together on Saturday in the Fairfield Cemetery.
Despite the long wait and complications throughout the process, Carson paused when asked if he would do anything differently.
"I
wouldn't do anything differently," he said. "I had no idea it was going
to take so long, but I would do it over. I believe it's really
beneficial to the community and to the people of Fairfield."
E-mail: eteichert@desnews.com