Dearinger Pioneer Cemetery

This burial site is the final resting place where an unknown number of Pioneer men, women and children were buried between the years 1853 and the early 1900’s. In 1851 the Dearinger family purchased the original land patent for the property on which the buried lay. The earliest known burial was the grandchild of Jacob Dearinger Sr. in 1853, and the 1st born child of William Dearinger and Hannah Hammer. In 1858 Jacob Dearinger Sr. set aside 1 acre of his land for a public cemetery, although additional burials may have occurred before this time. Jacob Dearinger Sr., a descendant of German immigrants, was laid to rest on his land in 1873. His gravestone remains today.

By 1962 the 1 acre cemetery had deteriorated and the township did not have a duty to maintain it under the existing law. The township conveyed the cemetery to an adjacent landowner. Subsequently, gravestones were moved to Hewitt Cemetery, but those buried here all remain in their original and now unmarked resting places, as only their stones were moved. Farming began atop the those buried here and a period of unrest followed. Clifford and Howard Dearinger petitioned up to the Iowa Appellate Court attempting to preserve this final resting place as sacred.

The Supreme Court of Iowa issued the Dearinger decision on March 31, 1986, stating that Iowa law "jealously protects" the special interest of a burial place to forever remain undisturbed. Shortly after, Senate File 120, for which the Dearinger Cemetery was a catalyst, became effective July 1, 1986, which determined only unoccupied cemeteries can be considered abandoned, and provided protection to burial sites, marked or unmarked.

Beneath this ground lie Pioneers. We honor them. May they rest in peace.



Sources:
1. Military Bounty Land Warrant Vol. 1055, Patent 44466, Issued May 1st, 1851
2. Jan 2nd, 1858: Jasper County Iowa land records
3. Survey Nov 15-16, 1866 John Colzar, Co. Surveyor, David Hays and Nathan Rawlings, Sworn Chainman

4. Iowa Supreme Court 387 N.W.2d 367 (1986) Dearinger v Elk Creek Township, et al.
"They removed several stones and performed a symbolic removal and reinterment of dirt at the Hewitt Cemetery in Elk Creek Township." 369 In 1983, the farmer (sic) "asked the township for permission to remove the remaining graves...."The defendants then proceeded to move the tablet part of the stones to Hewitt cemetery and repeated the symbolic reinterment of dirt." "Nothing in the record shows anything other than an entire acre of land dedicated for cemetery purposes and, in fact, used and occupied by graves."

5. Iowa Supreme Court 387 N.W.2d 367 (1986) Dearinger v Elk Creek Township, et al.
" The sentiment is sound, and has the sanction of mankind in all ages, which regards the resting place of the dead as hallowed ground, not subject to the laws of ordinary property, nor liable to be devoted to common uses. The peculiar use to which such property is dedicated, and the sentiment of sanctity with which mankind regard the burial place of the dead furnish ample reason for declining to apply to it the ordinary rules of ownership and devolution. The principle of all the cases, as said in Gardner v. Swan Point Cemetery, seems to be that the buried body shall remain undisturbed, and that the right and duty falls to the next of kin to see that its repose is duly protected."
Id. at 755, 56, 58, 110 N.W. 335.

6. Iowa Supreme Court 387 N.W.2d 367 (1986) Dearinger v Elk Creek Township, et al. "Additionally, we note the language of the supreme court in King v. Frame, 204 Iowa 1074, 1079, 216 N.W. 630 (1927), when it said, "a due respect for the memory of the dead and for the feelings of the living friends and relatives requires that, when a body is once interred, it shall so remain, unless extreme necessity demands its disinterment.
We find in the record no extreme necessity that would justify turning a deaf ear to the strenuous objections of plaintiffs over the disinterment of their ancestors. We also conclude, as did the supreme court in Acheson, that the permission of one member of the family to move the stones is no defense to defendants' actions'."See, 132 Iowa at 760, 110 N.W. 335.