Longtime Resident Fights Playground at Old Cemetery

An 84-year-old woman whose family moved to this city in 1845 is leading an effort to rid a former cemetery of playground equipment that she contends is dishonoring the dead.

“The city employees already dug two times in the same area where I had been told as a 10-year-old that my great-grandfather had been buried,” Minnie Drummy said. “It was the third time when I decided something had to be done.”

Drummy launched a letter-writing campaign that targeted city officials, the state attorney general, Dodge County prosecutors and the State Historical Society.

Leslie Eisenberg of the State Historical Society said Drummy is “very dedicated to her cause.”

“It’s largely through her efforts that we’re learning about the Old Waupun Cemetery,” Eisenberg said.

Drummy is demanding that Wilcox Park--once known as the Old Waupun Cemetery--be recognized as a burial site. The creation of a park shows a disturbing lack of respect for the hardships endured by the city’s founders, she says.

Waupun is about 60 miles northwest of Milwaukee.