Van Buren cemetery part of AETN documentary

story and photos by Marla Cantrell
[email protected]

The dead are speaking in the AETN documentary “Silent Stories,” which will air 6:30 p.m., Thursday (Mar. 11). The program takes viewers across Arkansas to the state’s oldest cemeteries and shows the efforts being made to preserve them.

Randy Smith, who is leading the movement to restore Van Buren’s Fairview Cemetery, attended the premiere on Friday night (March 5) in Little Rock.

“I’ve seen a clip already,” Smith said. “They did an amazing job showing the work being done at Fairview. I have a small part in the documentary. Mica Balcom (stone preservation specialist for Norton Arts) is in it a whole lot more.”

Balcom’s handiwork is evident across Fairview, which was founded in 1846. It sits just north of the Van Buren Depot off Poplar Street. He’s also conducted extensive work at Oak Cemetery in Fort Smith and at the Crawford County Courthouse. Balcom restored the Civil War soldier statue near the west entrance.

“I do a lot of civil war statues,” Balcom said. “One had been pushed almost off its base during a Civil Rights march years ago and I had to build scaffolding and figure out a way to roll it back into place without it falling. … I was sweating that one.”

Civil war re-enactors often show up and Balcom said they’re a serious lot. He said at one job, they stood guard while he worked. They threatened to force him off the scaffolding because they believed the rifle he was restoring should have had a bayonet attached.

Right now, Norton Arts is refurbishing the iron carriage steps from Fairview. They were installed at the entrance to Fairview so women could maneuver the complicated task of stepping out of a carriage while wearing a hoop skirt, some as wide as 18 feet. Smith said the steps are a rare find, just another shining jewel at Fairview.

While the steps are at Norton Arts studio in Marshall, Balcom is working on Parilee Stewart’s grave. Her name probably doesn’t ring a bell, but you’ve likely heard of her son, Bass Reeves, Judge Isaac Parker’s first black U.S. Deputy Marshal. He received his commission in 1875. The perimeter stonework around Stewart’s plot is broken into three pieces, likely by a lawnmower. He said lawnmowers and good-intentioned caretakers are his biggest challenge.

“People will come out and see a headstone that’s covered in moss, or needs to be cleaned and they’ll clean a stone with bleach,” Balcom said. “Man, the damage they do.”

Norton Arts cleans the stones with an organic solution that works over time. It bonds with the stone and makes it stronger.

“I bring it (D-2 Architectural Cleaner) with me,” Balcom said. “While I’m restoring one stone, I’ll clean one or two more. It’s a little thing I do. … I end up spending my weekends at other family’s plots, cleaning them because it’s what I like to do.”

Balcom is also working on the sandstone mystery grave, the oldest in Fairview Cemetery. No one knows for sure who’s buried there. Some speculate it’s the final resting place of a Viking, or a follower of DeSoto or LaSalle. When finished, the stones will be cleaned, the moss removed, and the brass plaque, which is compromising the stone, will be gone.

Balcom, who’s worked across the country, said he knew little about restoration before Norton Arts hired him. He’s was a mason before signing on with Norton and found the transition an easy one. He’s a quick learner, loves history and enjoys research.
He is reticent about his talent. Smith is not.

“Mica won’t say this, but he’s an artist,” Smith said. “He can take a stone that’s been broken to pieces and put it back together so that you can’t tell it was ever broken. He’s been a godsend to Fairview.”

Balcom said he’s often asked whether anything supernatural happens while he’s working so close to the dead.

“I don’t feel any kind of spirit,” Balcom said. “I think I’m helping out, preserving history, but I don’t feel anything beyond that.”

He does think the dead have a mission even after they’re gone.

“I went to this slave cemetery once,” Balcom said. “Over a hundred graves. It was a treasure to find. A busload of kids who had been in trouble came out that day. I talked to them and showed them the graves. They helped, you know, and you know what? The woman who asked me to come out that day said a few of them still come back — on their own — to help out.