THE RAPE OF
HOWELL AND HAMBURG, MISSOURI
(An American Tragedy)
by
Donald
K. Muschany
COPYRIGHT © 1978 BY DONALD K. MUSCHANY. ALL
RIGHTS RESERVED.
2. WELSHING ON A PROMISE AND COMMITMENT
“IT IS FOR US THE
LIVING—BUT OUR GOVERNMENT FORGOT”
To paraphrase Abe Lincoln, we the living,
can fight back. We can set the record straight on another matter as we know it
about the Hamburg-Howell community. Our ancestors cannot. Most of them are
buried in the many private family cemeteries in the Weldon Spring Ordnance
Area. The Government has once more reneged on a promise.
As most people know, the area is filled
with private, public, and church cemeteries. Before the great exodus of the
families from the area, they were concerned about their dead. When asked about
the upkeep and future of these graveyards, the Government asked my father,
Morris Muschany, a funeral director, and Jim Pitman, another funeral director,
to explore the cost of moving all the bodies to other cemeteries outside the
area. This they did, but the government found the cost was too high and too
many legal questions were involved. As a compromise with the people, the
Government promised to fence in all cemetery plots and give them
perpetual care, forever and evermore. This was acceptable. Good care was taken
of these areas until the TNT plant was closed, and then many of the cemeteries
became weed fields. The Government did nothing and continues to do nothing.
Concerned families have had to make yearly contributions for the upkeep of
several cemeteries, while some go unattended. A troop of Boy Scouts has taken
on the project of giving some kind of care for one cemetery whose inhabitants
have no living relatives. In other cases, the heirs and descendants do as good
a job as distance will permit.
This was an atrocity to allow this to
happen in a Christian country, but again the record indicates that the
Government reneged on its promise. Frankly, I feel the Government took
advantage of the situation. The people were tired of court fights. They were
weary and gave up.
When the TNT plant was in operation, I
remember very clearly that a funeral cortege moved into the area under the
guidance of armed guards, after having received permission to enter.
Everyone could understand this, because America was involved in a war.
It is very difficult to understand why the
Government will not now honor its commitment. Just because it is through using
the land does not release it from its promise or commitment to care for the
cemeteries.
The people who are buried in the area
cannot speak for themselves, but I speak for my mother, my step-mother, and my
father, my grandmother and grandfather, and other relatives who are interred in
the area, and for all of my friends. I charge that the Government has, and is
still, “welshing”. It is no wonder that people lose faith in those they trust.
