Remembering An Officer

FOP Restores 100-Year-Old Gravestone

By Joseph Haney

A little over 100 years after it was erected, the gravestone for a Buena Vista police officer was restored to its original condition, thanks to efforts by the local chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police.

Louis Donnel Wilmeth died in the line of duty on July 20, 1923. The 38-year-old officer was working to clean the drain from the city’s reservoir when his service pistol fell out of its holster, discharging as it landed on the rocks and shooting Wilmeth in the chest.

According to an article on the incident in the Rockbridge County News, a boy was nearby and ran to get help, but Wilmeth had died by the time help arrived.

Wilmeth had been an of-

, page B8 ficer with the Buena Vista Police Department for two years at the time of his death, and in law enforcement for five years total, working part-time for the Baldwin-Phelps Detective Agency. He was described in the Rockbridge County News article as “one of the most efficient officers that the city ever had, always trying to do his duty as he saw it without fear or favor.”

Wilmeth was buried in Green Hill Cemetery on July 22.

Over the course of the next century, Wilmeth’s gravestone fell victim to the elements and by 2023, it was leaning forward and the cemetery’s maintenance crew was hitting the base of the stone while mowing the grass, chipping at it. One of Wilmeth’s grandchildren, Carole Rose Wilmeth Barton, decided that something needed to be done about the condition of the stone.

“I couldn’t just leave it like this, so I decided I was going to get it fixed,” she said.

Barton reached out to CL Hamric Memorials in Lexington to get an estimate of what it would cost to restore the gravestone and was told it would be around $1,500 to restore the stone.

“I thought, ‘I’ll pay for it, but it would be nice if someone else would,’” Barton said.

Barton’s niece, Rochelle Coleman Schumach, suggested getting the police to help pay for the restoration and reached out to Doug Hamilton, the treasurer with the local chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police.

As luck would have it, the chapter was having a meeting the night that Schumach contacted him and he was able to bring the issue to the chapter.

After looking into it and getting estimates – which matched the ones Barton had received – the chapter voted to cover the entire cost of the restoration. Hamilton told The News-Gazette that every member in attendance at the meeting voted in favor of the proposal.

“It was completely unknown to me who this guy was, so we dug into it and found out he was killed in the line of duty, plus the fact that it was the 100th [anniversary] … and we have a chance to give something back to him and his family,” he said. “I enjoyed seeing it through the process.”

Once work began, it took only a few weeks to complete. In addition to restoring the gravestone, a new concrete base was installed to provide more stability for the stone and to raise it off the ground to prevent further chipping from the maintenance crew’s mowers.

The final cost of the restoration came in a little over the estimates at $1,575, all of which was paid by the Fraternal Order of Police.

“It’s been a project, and it’s worked out really well,” Barton said of the final product.

Wilmeth was one of four Buena Vista police officers who have died in the line of dutyin the city’s history.

Patrolman James Flint was stabbed while attempting to arrest a man who had escaped from Richmond Penitentiary on Aug. 21, 1921; Chief of Police James Madison Beard was shot with his own gun inside the Buena Vista courthouse and jail by a prisoner he had transferred from Pennsylvania on Oct. 14, 1933; and Lt. William Douglas Oyler was shot and killed while responding to a report of shots fired into a house located at Locust Avenue and 33rd Street on Jan. 18, 1982.