Vincent Stark’s job could be described with a pun: He has more than 9,000 people under him. He is working at the Holy Cross Cemetery in Corpus Christi. But for the former high school teacher and coach, it’s much more than that. It’s a ministry, living out the works of mercy.
A year ago, It became apparent that the Holy Cross Cemetery – the oldest and only Catholic Cemetery in Corpus Christi – needed some care. Graveyards were overgrown, tombstones crooked or sunken, and weeds were taking over. Vince Stark was hired and spent his first weeks – weeding. “It was not pleasant,” he shares. But he didn’t think of quitting, “that’s not how my parents raised me.” It took him three months to get on a regular schedule with mowing, “in the summer, you mow one section every day, and you need to start over on Monday,” he describes the fight against the fast-growing grass.
The Holy Cross Cemetery goes back to 1855. Catherine Bray gave the land to the diocese and was buried on it herself, too. Family members of the first settlers were buried here, as well as some historical figures. Among them is Margarete Mary Healy Murphy (1833 – 1907), an Irish-American Catholic religious sister and early civil rights activist who is now on her path to sainthood. She is known for founding the Sisters of the Holy Spirit and Mary Immaculate, the first order of sisters in Texas, and the first free private school for African Americans in San Antonio.
However, time took its toll on the burial grounds. “Section E was never plotted,” Vince noticed. If someone called the diocese looking for a deceased family member, there was no way of locating the spot.
This brought a group of students from the TAMUCC Newman Center onto the scene: Looking for service opportunities, they dedicated a weekend to help with landscaping and categorizing section E. “It was a big help, and then they started to insert the data into an Excel sheet.”
Besides all this improvement, there was and is still much to be done. Vince Stark put together some impressive data: in less than a year, 275 stones were set up, and many were broken and sunken into the ground. One hundred forty more were leveled. With the help of Abel Garcia, a veteran, all 200 tombstones of Veterans were cleaned and leveled. Garcia, who needs more than one hour to clean a simple stone; with a brush, a biological cleaner and the strength of his hands, now continues with other abandoned graves.
The excellent work also attracts others to help. Vince found a huge Jesus statue toppled over. Special equipment was needed to raise it, and the rental price was $3,500. While picking up little flags that the Knights of Columbus provided for Veterans’ Day, he noticed Malik Air Conditioning across the street, a business that had precisely the equipment needed. They agreed to help and raised the massive stone for free – now, after cleaning, the statue shines in its beauty.
The work bears much fruit. “People start coming and visiting the graves of their loved ones,” he said. Others just come to take a walk on the now beautiful grounds. And there are still occasionally burials in family plots.
For Vince, a physics teacher and basketball and track coach for 31 years, this makes his work even more precious: “When people come and tell you the stories of their loved ones, that makes my day.”