Gilbert Quasquicentennial Features Cemetery Walk and Archeological Dig
Tickets now available for the cemetery walk!

Gilbert, Iowa — The history club of the Gilbert Community School District is sponsoring a cemetery walk on July 30. The group is also conducting tours to its archeological dig at Zenorsville on July 31. The events are part of the weekend of festivities when Gilbert, a growing town with a population of about 1000 people and located two miles north of Ames, celebrates its 125^th anniversary.

The cemetery walk begins at 5 pm on Friday at the Gilbert High School. A wagon pulled by a team of draft horses will transport participants to the local cemetery. It is a half mile north along a gravel road. Visitors will then walk back in time, encountering various interpreters in period costume and demeanor at several locations among the tombstones. The characters will tell about their lives and roles in Gilbert history.

After experiencing the drama, visitors will ride on the horse-drawn wagon back to the school for coffee and homemade pie or other dessert. A new round of the historical walk starts every 40 minutes with the wagon and horses making their last departure from the school to the cemetery at 7 pm.

Only 200 tickets will be sold for the cemetery walk. They are available at the Gilbert City Hall and the Consignment Gallery. Both are on Main Street in Gilbert. The cost is $3.00 per person and covers the horse-drawn ride, cemetery activities, and dessert. Eric Brown of Zearing will drive his horses and wagon for the rides. The Gilbert Lutheran Church and the Gilbert Evangelical Free Church will provide the desserts.

During the 2003-2004 academic year, the history club at the Gilbert schools began an archeological exploration at Zenorsville. It is an abandoned coal-mining town four miles west of Gilbert that played a significant role in Gilbert’s early history. The tours of the dig are scheduled for Saturday. A school bus will leave the high school at 1 and 2 pm, transporting visitors to Zenorsville.

There will be a display of photos and other historical materials at the high school during the quasquicentennial celebration. The Gilbert 125 festivities begin Friday evening with the cemetery walk, food, live music, antique car and tractor show, and other activities. There are also many events on Saturday, beginning with a Lion’s Club pancake feed and G125 parade in the morning. The afternoon schedule includes the Zenorsville tour, an art fair, live music, food, and youth activities. During the weekend, there will also be a pre-1840s, fur trade era, rendezvous re-enactment. The Gilbert High School all-class banquet will be held Saturday evening at the Quality Inn (formerly the Starlite) in Ames, and there will be a youth concert in Gilbert that night. Several Gilbert High School classes are also planning their own reunions at various times during the weekend.

Gilbert history club members began work at Zenorsville this spring, roping off sites and flagging the various items they found. Gilbert social studies teacher, Nancy Peterson, is the club adviser. She says the group is working closely with state archeologist Lynn Alex and that Alex is applying for a grant through the University of Iowa to publish a book. According to Peterson, "The intent of the book is to inform secondary teachers about how to do a dig with amateurs." She smiled and added, "We’re Lynn’s guinea pigs."

The cemetery walk script was written by Peterson, along with Paul Eness, Joanne Brown Isenhart, Bob Jensen, and Marie Dodds Sande.

Eness graduated from Gilbert High School in 1952, is a retired veterinarian, and lives in Dayton (Iowa). He claims that the characters in the drama are all "Common people who had an impact in their own way on the community."

Bessie and John Gildersleeve.

Eness will interpret the life of the late John Gildersleeve. Eness’s dad and John were cousins. As Eness says, "Nobody, can really play the part of John." The affable and well-known farmer, who lived just north of the cemetery, was a one-of-a-kind character. He had a unique view of Gilbert that he wove into many stories. Gildersleeve died in 1994. His wife, Bessie Gildersleeve, continues to live on the family farm. She is 100 years old and the oldest living graduate of Gilbert High School.

Sande is a great grand-daughter of Catherine Keigley Dodds, the matriarch of a farm family that settled land east of Gilbert 125 years ago. Dodds will be portrayed by Rose Brandt, a reading specialist at the Gilbert elementary school .

Claire Duple, a member of the history club and a 2004 graduate of Gilbert, will present some Gilbert history and set the stage for the cemetery theater. She will also portray Elizabeth Shepard, the wife of J.T. Shepard. He donated 10 acres of land to the railroad to create a train station.

Joel Kruckenberg and Denise Carlson will portray Charles and Sarah Mathews. Kruckenberg retired in May from the Gilbert schools after a long and highly successful career as a mathematics teacher and girls’ basketball coach. Carlson is a Gilbert third grade teacher. Mr. Mathews joined J.T. Shepard as a member of the founding fathers by donating 10 acres of land for the railroad.

Kelsey Hein, a senior member of the history club, will portray her great, great, grand-mother Elizabeth Bunce. The Bunce family has a long history in the community, beginning in Zenorsville and continuing in Gilbert.

The descendants of Milt and Edna Brown will portray the lives of the couple, who worked at the Gilbert schools. Milt was a janitor for 25 years, beginning in 1931. Edna was a cook for 15 years.

Tom Norris of the Ames ACTORS organization will portray Maury Banford, who began work at the Gilbert school as a mechanic and grounds keeper in 1947.

Thomas Lux, another senior member of the history club, will portray George Hale, who was Gilbert’s last constable. Hale served the city in the 1950s and was the grounds keeper and grave digger at the cemetery.

For further information about the history club projects, please contact Nancy Peterson at 515-232-8457 or email her at esp2111@uswest.net. Updates about all aspects of the G125 celebration will also be available on the Gilbert Gazette. It is an unofficial web site for the Gilbert community at www.gilbertgazette.com.