Santa Clarita / Antelope Valley : Veteran Gives Time, Respect to Cemetery : Volunteers: Lionel DeRosier is honored by the Board of Supervisors for cleaning up the ragged Palmdale site.

For most people, clearing a plot of land tangled with five-foot mounds of blackened tumbleweeds, dripping junipers and scattered buckwheat bushes by hand would be a dreaded chore.

For Lionel DeRosier, it’s a pleasure.

“What else would I be doing?” the 74-year-old decorated World War II veteran asked. “Having fun?”

For the last 15 months, seven days a week, DeRosier has spent more than four hours a day clearing rocks, pulling weeds, moving tumbleweeds, cleaning tombstones and potting plastic flowers in a forgotten cemetery in Palmdale.

On Tuesday, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors honored DeRosier with a scroll in appreciation of the work he has done at Palmdale Cemetery, which local residents used to call the “cat and dog cemetery” for its ragged appearance.

But DeRosier didn’t tackle the grueling job for recognition, he did it out of a military-instilled belief in the importance of honoring the dead.

“I don’t remember who said it, but it’s true,” DeRosier said. “You can tell the plight of a country by the way it takes care of its cemeteries.”

The 2 1/2-acre Palmdale Cemetery on S Avenue dates back to 1884, the date found on the oldest of nearly 300 grave markers, said Roger Persons, chairman of the cemetery committee at the Palmdale Kiwanis Club. He said the Zion Evangelical Church started the cemetery, but lost it after disbanding in 1900. Since then, it has been sold more than nine times without any deeds, according to Kiwanis Club research. The club took over operation of the cemetery in 1984 and is responsible for keeping the records and determining who can be buried there.

Sherry Lasagna, senior deputy at the Antelope Valley field office of Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich, said the cemetery belongs to no one.

“It’s a no-man’s cemetery,” Lasagna said. “Our office has researched and researched that thing.”

The only other cemetery in Palmdale, the Desert Lawn Memorial Park about half a mile away on S Avenue, is privately owned and maintained.

DeRosier, a quiet, witty man with sun-roughened skin and hands worn from hard work, has spent the better part of his life serving others.

In World War II, he won two Purple Hearts for his service in the 32nd Infantry Division in the South Pacific. When he was injured in the eyes, he was discharged and later became a Los Angeles city firefighter. He worked with the Fire Department for 30 years, eventually becoming a senior fire inspector. DeRosier and his wife of 47 years, Patricia DeRosier, have two grown children.

DeRosier began the Palmdale Cemetery project a year ago in May. He said he went to the cemetery to spiff it up before Memorial Day and was stunned by the decayed conditions.

“The crosses were all deteriorated,” he said. “And some of them had been turned upside down.”

With the occasional help of a friend, Andy Horvatich, 78, DeRosier began what turned out to be an enormous undertaking. With most of the cemetery now cleared and the crosses repaired, DeRosier is looking for groups or individuals who will donate artificial flowers for each tombstone.

DeRosier said the work is tiring but peaceful--spending hours in the rambling cemetery gives him an opportunity to ponder his own life.

“It lets you know how insignificant you are,” he said, “how short our time is here.”

Not a superstitious man, DeRosier said he doesn’t dwell on the lives represented by the tombstones he cleans.

But he does admit to talking to them once in a while, on particularly hot days.

“You’d be surprised what snappy things I say to these people,” DeRosier said. “And they don’t talk back.”

Glenn Bergen, 70, a longtime friend of DeRosier’s and a fellow member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Palmdale, said the work comes naturally to DeRosier.

“Gee whiz, you can’t even think of all the good things that guy does,” Bergen said. “And all for no pay, no nothing.”