Linden's Heritage Foundation elected board members and heard a distinguished story of the past at its fourth annual membership meeting Saturday.
But in a larger sense the members and friends heard of the future from Board Chairman Joe Lovelace.
"This was a good turn out for our annual meeting," Lovelace said afterward. "Our annual membership meeting is one in which we not only go over business matters but also present something of historical significance to the public, something which people did not know."
"George Frost attracted my attention with an election story of local history I was not familiar with. And it was important to know more about the struggle Linden and Atlanta notoriously once had about whether the county seat would move from Linden to Atlanta and the west one-third of Cass County would go over Morris County."
Frost had given details on the years 1889 to 1904, which had been a dynamic period for Cass County. The issues included a special election to cede 176 square miles of west Cass County to Morris County and move the county seat from Linden to Atlanta.
But the meeting had a deeper purpose, Lovelace continued
"It's important to know these things so to appreciate the significance of where we are today. We don't need to be looking completely forward in our lives. We go back to our past to find our future. We don't have the businesses we used to have. So what do you do. Well, with Main Street, for example, we orientate the people to go forward (to) find what people want to come to."
Pointing to more, Lovelace remarked on the community's recent discovery of the old Macedonia cemetery, which held African-American graves and was in an overgrown and hidden site next to the well-cared for city cemetery. Some of the locations were little more than depressions in the ground
Since then, the community has cleaned, identified sites and prepared the cemetery for public approval and appreciation.
"The work that's being done in the cemetery, this is extremely important," Lovelace said. "That's a piece of history. You think you are walking among the trees, and you are walking on bodies of people that lived in Linden many years ago, back in the 1850s. They were African-Americans and how they got here and their history is important.
"And there's to be a dedication around that cemetery. April 18, I think. They'll have a big opening ceremony."
The heritage Foundation helps to recall with fondness the past, he concluded.
"It's what the foundation is all about. To honor, respect and save the past that is so important to all of us."
New members of the Heritage Foundation's board are Pat Rountree, Jo Anna Duncan, Becky Wilbanks and Brenda Deming.