AUSTIN, Texas — The Oakwood Cemetery in East Austin wants to make sure history is not erased.
An entire weekend was dedicated to remembering the lives that have might have been forgotten.
A monument, decorated with white flowers and numbers inscribed on the backside, was placed next to the chapel for 36 people who were discovered buried underneath it in 2016.
The numbers are a tool to know which person is buried where, according to Jennifer Chenoweth, the cemetery's museum site coordinator.
Chenoweth said each day of the weekend had a different focus. The first day consisted of a tour of the cemetery and the history of the people buried there. The second day was focused on "racial healing and transformation," and the third day was a "homegoing celebration."
"What we're trying to do is be accountable for the things that have happened before us," Chenoweth said. "There is no way of fixing the past, but there is a way of trying to repair some of the harm in the present."
The 36 remains – which include men, women and children – are said to have been buried in the 1800s.
According to Chenoweth, the first person to be buried at the cemetery was an enslaved man in 1839. Fast-forward 75 years later, in 1914, the chapel was built to have funerals. However, at the time, burial sections were segregated by race and class.
It wasn't until 2016, when the chapel was set to undergo restoration, that crews discovered the remains. They were then exhumed and studied for DNA.
"Of the 36, there are six individuals of Mexican descent, six people of European descent, six people of Black descent and one person of Asian descent – of the people who we were able to identify something about their ethnicities in the studies," Chenoweth said.
Greg Farrar, who became part of the project, said he stumbled upon it after he was on his own journey to track down his ancestors.
Farrar has eight family members buried at Oakwood Cemetery and discovered a whole new side of his family – something he hopes others are able to do.
"I think, for me, it was really kind of like a call to action where, you know, it can be very easy to be pretty frustrated, to be angry with why we're in this place, why it happened, why we don't have the records to show where someone was buried in the layouts and all of that," Farrar said.
The next step is for staff to complete the DNA and isotope analysis and continue reaching out to descendants of the 36 remains.
"If you think you had generations of ancestors here before you, we would love to hear from you," Chenoweth said.