Four veterans who had been largely forgotten were remembered Monday in Cherokee — and their stories may be just the beginning.
A veterans recognition ceremony was held yesterday afternoon at the Cherokee Mental Health Institute (MHI) as part of Cherokee History Week.
The ceremony honored four military veterans buried at Beacon Hollow Cemetery on the MHI grounds who had not previously received military recognition.
The four men are Consider Wise Bordwell, John Kleinfelter, Benjamin Jenkins and Walter R. Ransom.
Cherokee Area Archives co-chair John Snapp says the Archives became involved about a year ago, after volunteers with the Missing in America Project asked for help researching the men.
The Archives then searched its own records, information from the Mental Health Institute and online resources to learn more about the four veterans.
Snapp says their military service spans several decades.
Bordwell served during the Civil War and was wounded at Petersburg, Va.
Jenkins served with an Illinois cavalry regiment during the Civil War and later received a disability pension for his service.
Kleinfelter enlisted at age 17 and served in the 11th Infantry from 1896 to 1898, during the period leading up to the Spanish-American War.
Ransom served more than 30 years in the military, including during the World War I era.
All four men died while at the Mental Health Institute and were buried at Beacon Hollow.
Snapp says the cemetery contains 831 graves, and the individuals originally were identified by numbers rather than names on the grave markers.
He says former MHI workers helped restore the cemetery in 2002, and MHI records were used to create a memorial area with nameplates identifying people buried there.
The discovery of these four veterans also sheds light on why people who died at the institution may have ended up buried there.
Snapp says some residents may have had no surviving family, while others may have had relatives who could not afford to bring their remains home. He also says the stigma surrounding mental illness at the time may have played a role in some families not claiming a loved one.
The Missing in America Project works nationally to locate, identify and inter unclaimed cremated remains of American veterans. The organization says it has found more than 41,500 cremains and identified more than 8,500 veterans, with more than 8,300 veterans interred.
For Snapp, Monday’s ceremony was about making sure these four men receive recognition that had been missing for generations.
And there could be more stories waiting to be uncovered.
Snapp says researchers were able to connect these four men with their military service, but there are likely other people buried at Beacon Hollow whose military histories have not yet been established.
The Cherokee Mental Health Institute has operated in Cherokee for more than a century. The main hospital opened to patients in 1902, following the state’s decision to establish a new mental health institution in northwest Iowa.
The facility remains operated by the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services and provides inpatient psychiatric services for adults.
