By Angela Hayes | Special to the Advertiser

Walking through a cemetery can bring forth a flood of conflicting emotions.

It can make you feel happy for the momentary sense of physical connection with a past loved one, thoughtful and wondering towards the ones who have been gone many decades prior to our lives beginning, and reflective as we look our own mortality in the eyes.

With these thoughts in mind, the Verbena Cemetery will be holding their annual cleanup day June 18, 2016 from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m.

Located on County Road 500 in Verbena, residents who have family, friends, or neighbors interred at the cemetery are invited to share in fellowship with other workers from the community as they, help maintain the plots, and beautify the cemetery.

“We usually have a dozen people show up and have a bit of fun while we work,” said Betsy Hornady, board member with the Verbena Cemetery Trust. “People who have loved ones are buried here and are interested in the plots being kept up.”

All volunteers will need to bring their own lawn mowers, weed eaters, hoes, leaf blowers, hedge trimmers, and work gloves, as well as any additional equipment needed, including a smile.

The Verbena Cemetery is a wonderful presentation of living history with 750 recorded burials and is home to the last resting place of men and women from varying walks of life.

The cemetery includes doctors, soldiers, farmers, teachers, mothers and babies.

Covering two decades, Verbena Cemetery is home to its earliest recorded burial was Jacob Mitchell, who served as a member of the Revolutionary War.

He was born in 1756 and died in 1837.

The cemetery is a place to be respected and revered, and operates on a volunteer basis.

Donations that assist in the maintenance of the cemetery can be mailed to Verbena Cemetery Trust at P.O. Box 123, Verbena, AL 36091.