From the collections at the Leavenworth County Historical Society and Museum. Reprinted with permission from The Leavenworth County Historical Society and Museum and the Leavenworth Times. Donated by Debra Graden.

Five small stones mark the gravesites of five small children lost in the bramble and overgrown brush that fill the Sparks Cemetery.

Lost, but not forgotten, is this one-acre cemetery located outside Easton on private farm property. However, at one time there was an old country road that ran past the cemetery and just over the hill was a Morman church.

Several Latter Day Saints were buried there, including members of the Sparks and Hasty families. Rural Easton resident Francis Collins has strong ties to the Sparks Cemetery. His mother was a Hasty and her parents, brother and five infant cousins are buried there.

Collins drove his pickup truck last week through two fields, stopped once to open a gate and then pulled alongside the cemetery marked only by a wire fence. He walked 15 feet before the first headstones were visible.

"I remember seeing the horse drawn hurst carry my uncle's coffin up the hill to this cemetery," he said, "John Hennessey was doing the burying back then."

Burials began as early as 1869 when George Moore, infant son of T. F. and N. E. Moore died Nov. 11, 1869. Several Civil War veterans can be found and the headstone of Jesse F. Pyle indicates he served in Company D, 11th Cavalry. He was 33 years old when he died Jan. 2, 1871.

Collins is proud of his mother's Morman family and says many of those buried in Sparks are Mormans.

"There were many burials before the cemetery was chartered. And once that old Morman church was started, they used the cemetery to bury their people," he explained.

The Latter Day Saints established the church in 1901, but it was destroyed May 30, 1930 when a tornado touched down in the area.

"My wife's uncle built his house out of the lumber left after the church was hit by the tornado."

It was during that time the road disappeared that leads to the cemetery. "People around here say it was sold for a $1, but apparently it was

Article donated by Debra Graden, President
Leavenworth County Genealogical Society, 1998