Local veteran quits cemetery restoration project after two years

Vietnam veteran Cruz T. Abarca is calling it quits after two years of restoration work at Memory Gardens Cemetery.

“Walking away from this project due to the fact for the lack of volunteers and people’s interest,” Abarca said.

It started when he saw the abandoned place along Highway 86 between El C entro and Brawley.

“And I came out here to pay my respects. And I made this homemade sign that said, that read, what about these vets?” Abarca said.

He was moved to action.

“The more I saw the condition of the cemetery, the more I felt that something needed to be done,” Abarca said.

Over 600 people rest there. Including sixty plus veterans spanning from the Spanish-American War through Vietnam.

“That for many, many years people chose not to honor and respect their final resting place,” Abarca said.

He saw complete abandonment there, including headstones completely sunken into the ground.

“We got some probing rods and we started going row by row by row and we found several of them that had been sunken so we brought those backup,” Abarca said.

He said it was a lot of work.

“We took out, I want to say, about twelve trees that were completely dried up. There was all kinds of tumbleweeds growing everywhere. T here was thrash from the highway,” Abarca said.

The community helped at first but that soon the help fizzled out. He was left on his own.

“And we’re coming up to another memorial day, I find myself out here with my grandson. So, I’ve had to come to the conclusion that it’s only me,” Abarca said.

He doesn’t feel defeated, just frustrated. He said a lot has been accomplished but more needs to be done.

“But it’s hard for me to walk away because I still feel very strong about the reasons that I started this,” Abarca said.