Saving the Dead

Published: Feb. 13, 2007, midnight

b"Donny Willey, a retired Marine turned real-estate agent, discovered an abandoned community graveyard in danger of sinking into the Chesapeake Bay near his hometown of Hoopersville, Md. He says he's spent $30,000 of his own money over three years for an ongoing restoration project to prevent further erosion. He estimates that there are at least 100 graves belonging to both whites, whose tombstones date back to 1805, and African-Americans whose graves are often marked only by shallow depressions in the earth.."