The Names Right Beneath Our Feet: A Journalist, and Community Storyteller’s Guide to Saving Lost History

Hi, I’m Milan Parker.

I’m a multimedia journalist and community storyteller, and lately I've been calling myself something a little less official: an archivist of the overlooked. I spend my time documenting internet culture, community history, and physical spaces – things that often disappear if nobody bothers to write them down. What a long way of saying: I’m the person who reads gravestones for fun.

Milan Parker is a New Jersey-based journalist and storyteller whose love for writing was sparked by afternoon sessions devouring teen magazines like Bop and Tiger Beat while her grandmother shopped at Winn-Dixie. Her current work focuses on the intersection of art, and community in Philadelphia, as well as the often-overlooked histories of the Black community in Burlington and Camden County, NJ

Journalism gave me the tools to ask questions and chase down stories, but it was archiving that taught me which stories actually needed chasing. The people who get remembered without any effort – the famous, the well-documented, the ones with millions of plaques and biographies –  were never really who I was interested in. I’ve always been drawn to the names that history almost let slip through the cracks, and to the quiet work of making sure they don’t.

And therefore, that is what brings me to Mount Peace.

Since I was fifteen, I've been photographing, transcribing, and archiving graves for Find a Grave, first as a way to fill up bored teenage afternoons, and eventually as something closer to a calling. I’ve walked cemetery acreage searching for a single name, tracked down obituaries for strangers, and sat with headstones long enough to wonder who chose the words carved into them. Somewhere along the way, a hobby turned into a habit, and the habit turned into a lens I now bring to everything I do. Mount Peace felt like a natural place to bring my same curiosity and care: a place with its own names, its own histories, and its own stories waiting for someone to notice them.

The headstone of 21-year-old William S. Washington, featuring a heartfelt epitaph, is situated amidst the fallen leaves and lush greenery.

Here’s the thing I keep learning, cemetery after cemetery: being remembered isn’t guaranteed. Headstones sink into the dirt, records go missing in mysterious circumstances, and families move away and lose the ability to visit. Sometimes the only proof a person ever existed is a name carved in stone that nobody has read aloud in decades. But someone showing up, reading that name, and asking “who were you, “who loved them?”, “who did they love?”, and “what did they build here?”—that is where the erasure stops.?” A series of small acts is enough to pull a person back from being forgotten. You don’t need to have known someone to matter to their story.

That simple act of curiosity turns a cold piece of granite back into a human life. It’s a reminder that history isn’t just made by the giants in the textbooks; it is woven together by the quiet, everyday people resting right beneath our feet. Mount Peace is full of those forgotten threads, but the truth is, you don’t have to travel far to find them. There are stories waiting to be rediscovered, names waiting to be spoken aloud, and histories waiting to be archived right in your own backyard.

Soldiers Row in Mount Peace Cemetery is a serene resting place, graced with American flags and sheltered by towering trees, preserving the untold stories of Civil War veterans.

This is the lesson that I keep carrying with me, and it’s the same one that guides all that I do: history isn’t only kept alive by historians, but also by anyone willing to pay attention. To be a historian of memory and nature doesn’t take an advanced degree in local history or the best genealogy skills. For most, all it is just a walk and a desire to stop, look a little closer, and start asking the questions. Mount Peace has its own names waiting to be noticed, its own family plots with stories that are merely sitting at the surface, and its own quiet history that deserves more than a passing glance on the way through.

Is there a name at Mount Peace you’ve wondered about? A family plot you’ve walked past without knowing its story? A grave you’ve passed a hundred times and never looked into? A relative buried there whose life you’d love to see written down and remembered properly?

Tell me in the comments. I’d love to go looking. 

Mount Peace Cemetery Association sincerely thanks guest blogger Milan Parker for her insightful contribution. Her writing enriches our community by emphasizing remembrance and reflection in our cemetery. Milan's perspective aligns with our mission to honor and preserve memories, providing a serene space for families to gather. We appreciate her dedication to sharing stories that connect us with our heritage. Thank you, Milan, for keeping the spirit of remembrance alive.