The first headstone that caught my eye was a Miami High graduate. His name is Homer Hancock
and he was a merchant marine and unfortunately his ship was carrying munitions and was sunk
off the coast of Cuba. They said they heard from 50 miles away the explosions, so and no family here,
so I felt, you know, someone needs to take care of these guys.
My name is Ronnie Hurwitz and I'm a volunteer at the cemetery for a little over three decades.
First time I came here was during high school in the late 70s and some friends showed me that it's such a historical cemetery
and I love history. This is the only cemetery where these are owned by the family. These are individual
plots or family plots and unfortunately probably 90 percent of people that are buried in here
have no family left in Miami and we have a lot of warheads in here, police officers, so someone
I feel needs to maintain them. I do not have any relatives here but I have met many families that
do have family buried here. They know I always take care of their loved one's grave, especially
after I see that they come visit it quite often. The first thing I do is I check the soldiers' graves
of the ones who are killed in combat. There's approximately 50 of them. There's six police
officers, two firemen. I always keep American flags year-round at their graves. It shows honor.
I do a lot of pruning here. I do a lot of weeding, making sure the weeds don't cover the headstones. The ones
that are especially vertical, unfortunately the weeds overpower them and you lose a headstone.
I always have my brushes and that's my main passion is maintaining, making sure they're always clean.
Within the past couple of years, the cemetery in the local area has gotten tremendously popular
so now we are getting visitors on the weekends and people are very interested on who's buried in here
and I love showing them. I have a couple stories. One time after President Obama won
his first election, I see an elderly Black man walk the cemetery and I knew he was
lost so I approached him and he told me he was looking for two of his boyhood friends,
that all three of them joined the military and those two died in Korea. I knew they would be
buried in the segregated section of the military section and they're actually buried not side by
side, but there's one person in between them and they died within 10 days apart from each other
so I walked him over to his graves of his friends and the first thing he did is lean
over and told him that a Black man won the presidency and I was taken back on how he was
and then he goes over and says and there's a little white boy taking care of your graves now,
which was classic. Yeah it was beautiful, it really was.
I always encourage people to visit cemeteries.
Don't litter, be respectful, ask questions. Many cemeteries have tours and unfortunately this
one doesn't but it's just a great place of Miami history. The Burdines family,
the Belcher family, a lot of Henry Flagler workers are here. Many Black incorporators of the City of
Miami are buried in here. It's incredible. It's nonstop. I never stopped learning something.