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Sisters take time to reclaim the past Photo by Jim Craven Sisters Georgia Blankenship, left, and Myrna Bradley are carrying on a family tradition of doing good deeds in the Phoenix Pioneer Cemetery, where 59 of their relatives are buried. Cemetery project restores part of Phoenix's legacy PHOENIX -- In 1913, a child died as her family was passing through Phoenix. With no money for a proper burial, the parents turned to the generosity of Thomas Wright, the town marshal at the time, who offered to bury the child in his family's plot in the town cemetery. Now, 86 years later, Wright's granddaughters are continuing his legacy of doing good deeds in the cemetery. In the last month, Myrna Bradley and her sister, Georgia Blankenship, have reclaimed the Phoenix Pioneer Cemetery from the overgrown bushes and broken beer bottles. They've chased away the cobwebs and a mentally ill man who made his home among the dead. With their little red wagon, big black dog and a blank map, the sisters go from grave to grave, carefully noting down the location of each marker and cross-checking the name with a listing of those buried in the 125-year-old cemetery. It's a mapping project Bradley started because of her interest in genealogy and her ties to the plot of land where 59 of her relatives are buried. "I've gone there all my life. As long as I can remember," said Bradley, 66. "My dad cleaned all our family's graves. Now we have taken over." When the mapping project is done, people will be able to easily find their family's graves on a cemetery map instead of wandering around looking for names on headstones. Currently, all that exists is a record of who purchased each plot and an alphabetical list of those buried in the cemetery. "We grew up in Phoenix. We remember these people," said Bradley. "A lot of people don't come to the graves anymore." Bradley even made her own unique round headstones for two boys buried in an unmarked grave after an aunt remembered where they had been buried. She speaks with sadness about the mysteries they won't be able to solve. "There are some empty spots with no markers, but we know someone is buried there because they are sunken," she said. "We don't have any family left to ask." In between trimming back bushes and sprucing up grave markers, Blankenship remembers the hard times of the past. "The sad part is all the babies and children and all the diseases they died from," she said. "You can just picture the mothers in their long dresses, mourning." But it's not grief that keeps them coming back to the Phoenix Pioneer Cemetery as well as cemeteries in Jacksonville and Sterling, where their family of farmers and miners are also buried. It's about continuing a tradition that began with Sunday trips with their father out to the Applegate, complete with picnic basket and flowers. It's also as simple as generously giving their time to sprucing up a Jacksonville sexton house. "We just like to make things look nice," said Bradley. Bradley isn't sure who will carry on the family tradition when she has passed on. "Our boys are not into genealogy at all," said Bradley. "If I die first, I hope my husband will put a flower on my grave." Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA