KENT, Conn.—A panel of five Kent residents will highlight the past and future of Kent’s many cemeteries at the Kent Senior Center on Wednesday, Sept. 17, at 11 a.m. in the continuing series of the “People and Places of Kent.”
The programs are co-sponsored by the senior center and Kent Historical Society.
Marge Smith, curator of the Kent Historical Society, will lead off with the location and history of the cemeteries and discuss their value to historians and those tracing their family histories.
Tamara Potter will talk about the Kent Cemetery Association, the non-profit that managed most of the town’s cemeteries until Kent’s Cemetery Commission was established recently. Ms. Potter and her husband, Bill, were officers and sextons of the association for decades.
Brent Kallstrom will discuss his role and responsibilities as current sexton. Two commission members, Bernadette Ellegard and Deborah Shiflett-Fitton, will describe two upcoming projects, the mapping of two cemeteries and a public program on cleaning gravestones, to take place in the Good Hill Cemetery this fall.
Kent’s cemeteries, from the early Good Hill Cemetery located in North Kent to Flanders Cemetery/Sacred Heart Cemetery, established in the 1980s, are a critical part of Kent’s long history.
The Kent Senior Center is located in the Templeton Farm Barn at 16 Swift Lane.
Programs are open to seniors and their caregivers. Advance registration is requested by calling 860 927-1586 or emailing ssassist@townofkentct.gov.