Jacksonville cemetery getting a fresh look

By Ryne Turke on June 11, 2016 at 7:27am

The community is taking note of the improvements happening at Jacksonville Memorial Lawn Cemetery.

Jeremy Nickel was named manager and president of Jacksonville Memorial Lawn Cemetery in March and immediately set out to bring back the prestige of the location.

“We’ve moved the cemetery office, which was located on Dunlap Court near Downtown Jacksonville, out to the cemetery grounds. There is a house with a lot of maintenance buildings and a little room set aside for office space. We have completely remodeled the interior space to make it nicer than what it was. That is what took most of my time during the winter. We got prepared out here to create a nice place for customers to order markers,” says Nickel.

Nickel has received plenty of positive feedback on the landscaping work being done at the cemetery.

“I’ve ripped out a lot of the evergreen shrubs that were surrounding the entrance and I have started there with my landscaping ideas. I enjoy having a lot of flowers and plants, so we are going to incorporate those into the cemetery. There was two 70-80 foot oak trees along the highway that were completely dead with bark falling off. I saw that as an extreme hazard. We removed those as soon as I got the opportunity to make those decisions and I’ve had three more taken down in the back,” says Nickel.

Constructing a building to hold cremations is next on Nickel’s to-do-list. Nickel plans to eliminate the weed problem at the cemetery before the grown season ends.

Visitors are asked to not drive over the grass and to pick up decorations sooner than five days after a holiday.

Memorial Lawn Cemetery is located on Highway 267 near the entrances to Lake Jacksonville.