Bennett Beautification
A Cemetery Rehabilitation Project
Bennett is a memory park.
It is a gathering place for mourning and for healing.
Bennett is a sacred place for celebrating those we miss.
The past meets the present here.
We bring the next generation to cemeteries to witness
how we take care of memories and preserve them for the future.
The younger visitors will become the keepers of the memories
and the future storytellers.
(Click on the arrows below or the photos to see a full descriptions.)
Bennett Beautification has been my childhood dream. Making Bennett beautiful is a way of connecting the past to the future. I love this cemetery. Many of my family and generations of family friends rest here. Rehabilitating Bennett Cemetery is my gift as a professional historian and with it comes hope to re-connect people with old traditions and create new ones.
Can a neglected rural cemetery become a place for healing, celebration, cultural renewal, learning about the past and how it connects us to the past and to the present? Yes. I believe it can.
Bennett Cemetery is located in Oklahoma Indian Country and has a rich history we all share.
Bennett Beautification Cemetery Rehabilitation Project inspires cross-cultural understanding and respect for past generations. This project was initiated in 2020 to nurture community involvement across rural Oklahoma. Please, come visit. Bring your family, share stories, and enjoy the memories of those who rest at Bennett and other "memory parks."
Cemeteries are "memory parks." They are our special place to gather and carry forward living legacies.
Janna LM Rogers, PhD
Bennett Beautification Founder and Benefactor
Founder of ONAN Cross-Cultural Forums
IN THE BEGINNING
During the pandemic of 2020 I decided to make a life-long dream come true. On June 5, 2020
I whispered to my elderly father that I have always wanted to make Bennett Cemetery a beautiful memory park where people come when they need to connect to the past.
My father was very sickly at that time and we both knew it would not be long before he too rested at Bennett beside his only son. My father gently leaned into me and whispered, "Girl, you can do anything out there you want." That moment was the beginning of the Bennett Beautification Cemetery Rehabilitation Project.
Bennett Beautification is my effort, as a professional historian, to connect a rural community to its rich and diverse history and re-connect to the tradition of veneration as a bonding experience. The rehabilitation project is a physical invitation to preserve memories and connect community to the histories and sacrifices of those who came before us.
COMMUNITY HISTORY
Bennett is the resting place for relatives of Chief John Ross, Joseph and Missouri Ann Rogers, and many others Indigenous families. This cemetery is directly linked to the history of forced removals of Indigenous peoples and slaveholding in pre-statehood Oklahoma. Pre-statehood Muskogee and McIntosh counties were Cherokee and Muscogee slave country. The underpinnings of southern slaveholding and the complexities of plantation society continue to reverberate throughout Oklahoma's history.
We are the peoples who I have coined as the Oklahoma Trinity: the multi-ethnic descendants of forced removals and slavery in a history steeped in Protestantism.
As a southern plantation economy pre-statehood Oklahoma involved many ethnic groups. Today's multi-cultural/multi-ethnic families including myself and most of us originally from the Bennett community and surrounding counties are blended Indian-White-Black families. We grew from rich and diverse histories. Many legacies trace to enslavement first as Indians and next as Africans and African descendants. Some of the same families who were owned by others later became slaveholders.
Prior to forced removals of Indian nations from the southeast; the federal government exercised policies of assimilation and promised that Indigenous groups who conformed would be exempt from removal. This is one reason the Cherokee and other Indigenous groups took up slaveholding.
Part of the requirements for exemption from removal included the adoption of southern slavery. Some Indigenous families became slaveholders. The federal government violated their agreement with Indian nations even though they had assimilated on varied levels including religious conversion. Forced removal of the Five Southeastern Nations and persons they enslaved was carried out. This history of ethnic cleansing brought the southern plantation economy, southern politics, and racialized attitudes of the South to Indian Territory (Oklahoma) in the 1830s. Some of those racial tensions continue to echo throughout present day Oklahoma.
Bennett Cemetery is directly linked to this history and to the Union, Confederate, and Native American factions of the American Civil War. Pre-statehood Oklahoma was included in battles of the Trans-Mississippi Theater. Some Civil War battles in Indian Territory were fought by families connected to the Bennett area. These family names can still be found etched in local headstones.
GENERATIONAL NAMES
Bennett Cemetery is rich with families associated with American Indian, local, state, and U.S. histories. Many older family names are rooted in social uplift and preservation of community including Rogers, Dorris, Crittenden, Smithson and many others. Dr. Jack Clark (J.C.) and Margaret Rogers are still remembered for their contributions to the community.
Charles Leo Smithson (passed in 2024) and his wife Barbara are iconic in the community on nearly every level. Leo Smithson was Chair of the Warner Memorial Cemetery Association and oversaw the activity and care of Bennett since the 1990s. Mr. Smithson served as liaison for the Cherokee Nation and the community nutrition center that serves up to 50 residents a day. Most of those served are elders. Hot meals are possible through a 2020 grant from the Cherokee Tribal Council. Barbara Smithson is a loved retired educator who remains actively involved in the community.
Former County Commissioner, Bruce Crittenden and his wife Marilyn have longstanding generational roots in the community. Bruce Crittenden is a descendent of Mose Crittenden (Cherokee Nation.) Marilyn Crittenden is a direct descendant of Governor William Bradford who emigrated to Plymouth Colony on the Mayflower in 1620. Bradford is a signatory of the Mayflower Compact along with my ancestor Thomas Rogers.
PHILANTHROPY
Bennett Beautification is a didactic philanthropic project.
The project has not received grant funding. Janna LM Rogers has funded this project as the sole benefactor. Upgrades and the rehabilitation has involved via planning and design, collaboration with monument companies, historical societies and archives, negotiating contractor bids, overseeing contractors, communicating with cemetery board members, and networking with volunteers.
Historical research is a central component that anchors this cemetery rehabilitation project in primary sources. Extensive travel, communicating with archives, libraries, and endless city, county, and state agencies makes this project a success.
2020 Upgrades
Upgrades to the cemetery include 8 plots, 2 north entry fence replacements, and a new Bennett Cemetery sign made of 5000 pounds of American black granite. The new Bennett sign has laser etching of the community's historical background.
2021-2022 Upgrades
Bennett Cottage has quickly become a community gathering place to reflect, forgive, heal, share old memories, make new ones, hold services, and even enjoy picnics. Please come by and make it your special meeting place.
Bennett Angel is a large statute featured inside the new cottage and welcomes all faiths. Bennett Cottage is an open-air building made of simple red brick with 12 columns and column caps. The columns as suitable for plants or decorations during memorial services or family gatherings. 8 wall caps function well for seating with a full few of the landscape. Near the cottage is an antique church bell donated by Susie Crittenden-Chambers.
CEMETERY ASSOCIATION
The Warner-Bennett Memorial Cemetery Association installed a black chain link fence across the east end of Bennett cemetery during June 2022. Funding for this fence came from the Cemetery Association, 1 private donor, 3 volunteers, and donations from Deb Hart and Janna LM Rogers. Deb Hart is a retired educator in Charleston Tennessee and does not have family resting at Bennett but respects the effort to improve the cemetery for future generations. Hart served as president of the Charleston Cumberland Presbyterian Church Historical Society. The Charleston Cumberland church was used as a hospital in 1863 during the American Civil War and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.
*Charleston Tennessee was originally Fort Cass. Fort Cass was the headquarters for Cherokee removal. The Fort included concentration camps near Mouse Creek that held Cherokees and their enslaved. The Indian Removal Act of 1830 was enforced by militia and the U.S. military. Many of the families who rest at Bennett Cemetery are descendants of those who survived forced removal from the southeastern United States.
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Bennett Beautification Cemetery Rehabilitation
Note 1: All changes and improvements to the cemetery must be approved by the Chair of the cemetery association. Some improvements require permission from county officials and may also require permits.
Note 2: Malicious acts or intent and vandalism in cemeteries are crimes in Oklahoma. Destruction or removal of tombs, gravestones or other cemetery ornaments is punishable by fine and imprisonment.
Okla. Stat. tit. 21, § 47-1167
Note 3: Tree roots can damage graves, memorial stones, and vacant space intended for future interment. Please do not plant trees or saplings without the approval from cemetery officials.