A new, interactive kiosk was installed at Merle Hay Memorial Cemetery in Glidden Friday afternoon, and history aficionados are encouraged to give the new system a try. For years, records of who was interred there were kept in handwritten ledgers, and that information was transferred to Microsoft Excel files in computers at city hall. Now that the kiosk has been installed, City Clerk, Suzy Danner, says finding a loved one’s grave and learning about the people buried there is now more accessible.
Danner adds the kiosk is more than just a computer encased in a weatherproof housing. It uses an internet-based program that allows access to the information it contains from anywhere and links to that page will be added to the city’s website soon. More than 3,700 burials have taken place at the cemetery, and Danner says many visitors will likely learn they have connections to somebody laid to rest there.
The cemetery is most well-known for being the final resting place for Pvt. Merle David Hay, a Carroll County native believed to be one of the first Americans killed in World War I. A significant portion of the cemetery’s visitors come to pay homage to Hay, and the new kiosk will make each person’s stop more meaningful. City officials collected more than $25,000 in donations from local businesses and secured several grants to fund the kiosk’s purchase and installation. The interactive station is up and running and ready for the public to use. The Glidden City Council will host a ribbon cutting before their next meeting at 5 p.m. on Monday, Sept. 23.
