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Submitted: 11/3/10 • Approved: 11/6/10 • Last Updated: 8/13/15 • R82638-G0-S3
A WRONG RIGHTED...Story by Hills of rest manager, Mr. Phil Schmitz.
Many threads of the story are lost in time, I can only tell you about my role in the burial of three skulls at Hills of rest.
Many years ago, a missionary to Cameroon Africa came across a cave filled with hundreds of skulls, artifacts of a past atrocity on a neighboring tribe. The skulls were treated as curiosities and several of them wound up in the missionary's possession. Eventually they found their way to Sioux Falls SD decades later and then ultimately to my desk in a old cardboard box this past summer.
I read the yellowed piece of paper that came with the skulls that told what little was known about them. The man who delivered the box asked me if anything could be done.
Like what ?, I didn't know their names, genders, customs or religion. I had only a remnant of their story. For that matter, just a remnant of their bodies. I looked at the box and thought about the families left behind. Thinking further I asked myself, "What would I do if this was the body of my ancestor ?
A decision was made. On a quite morning this past July , two priests gave late rites at a simple graveside ceremony at Hill of rest under the same blue sky we all share.
I looked up at the clouds and offered my own prayer for the bodies of these tribesmen that lived and loved a life far different than my own.
There are over thirteen thousand interred here at Hills of rest- Without fail the passing of the seasons, Spring to Fall, Summer to Winter offer their soothing balm of time to their memories.
I trust and pray that it will do the same to these people from Cameroon. May they rest in peace.
Blessings
Phil Schmitz, Cemetery mgr.
Burial:
Hills of Rest Memorial Park
Sioux Falls
Minnehaha County
South Dakota, USA
Plot: SECTION Z
Contributed on 11/3/10 by 9katz
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Record #: 82638