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GREENSBORO — Tombstones don't always tell the truth.

Take the one standing at Burley Joseph Bellow's grave. It provides the basics: date of birth, May 18, 1900; date of death, Aug. 21, 1921.

Then, there's the message engraved on the stone: "Gone But Not Forgotten."

That's where the truth may be in question.

Bellow's body, along with an estimated 2,000 others, lies in Proximity Mill cemetery, a run-down, little-noticed, trash-strewn burial ground on Phillips Avenue near U.S. 29 North.

"It looks terrible out there," says DeLane Nabors Pate, a Greensboro woman who has relatives buried there. "For all these people to be laying in unmarked graves is sad."

Proximity cemetery opened about 1900 to provide free burial space for Cone Mills employees.

But over the years, many of the grave markers have disappeared and no one can find records to indicate who's buried where.

"That has happened to a lot of mill graveyards," says Lynn Rumley, director of the Textile Heritage Center in Cooleemee. "Mill companies created these potters' fields. I don't know anything else to call it."

In 2004, the cemetery got sold off, along with more desirable property, during Cone's bankruptcy case, and the new owner would like to unload it.

"It was a package deal and they wouldn't break it out," Jim Peeples, general partner of a Greensboro company called Revolution Property Holdings, says of the cemetery.

"We have attempted to give that cemetery to the city or interested parties, even surrounding neighbors. If somebody had an interest in that cemetery, we would be glad to donate it."

But who'd want a cemetery?

"I'd take it," says Lauren Pate, DeLane Pate's 18-year-old granddaughter. "It would make me feel a little proud."

But that's not a viable option, her grandmother says, citing the liability issues associated with owning a cemetery. Besides, she says, "I can't even get her to mow my yard."

Lauren Pate recently visited the graves of her great-great-great-grandparents.

"It makes me feel sad and angry," she says of the conditions. "There's not even a sign that says what it is."

A hundred years ago, Proximity Mill cemetery probably looked idyllic. It sits in an oak grove on land that once made up part of the Cone family's vast holdings northeast of the city.

Today, idyllic would not describe this place.

On one side, it abuts Phillips Avenue, where cars whiz past graves only 15 feet from the curb.

A chain-link fence, covered in vines and bushes, surrounds it on three sides. Houses back up to the fence. Neighbors use the property as a cut-through to a local convenience store. Snack wrappers litter the ground.

A drive, entered between two brick columns, cuts through the property.

One of the trees has died and might soon fall. Faded plastic flowers, some of which have tipped over, adorn some of the graves. A stack of broken tombstones stands beside a small tree. A baseball, apparently thrown or batted over the fence, lies beside a marker. Tree branches litter the ground.

The grass gets cut about every four weeks.

On row after row of graves, the markers or headstones have been removed or stolen. In most cases, no one knows who's buried there.

"As families die out, there's no one to remember," says DeLane Pate, who grew up in the Proximity Mill village. "There's no one to care."

No one can say when burials started at Proximity. The mill opened in 1895. One grave that still has a stone dates back to 1901.

Burials, which continued into the 1990s, started in the northwest corner on a first-come, first-served basis, meaning that when someone died they might be buried next to their neighbor's spouse. Family plots developed later.

Interments include Civil War veterans and World War I veterans.

And lots of children. One stone reads: "Budded on earth to bloom in heaven."

True to the promise on Burley Joseph Bellow's stone, some people haven't forgotten.

Carolyn Hines, a communications consultant for International Textile Group, the company that formed after buying Cone Mills and Burlington Industries out of bankruptcy, says she still gets an occasional call from someone doing genealogical research.

She has to tell them the records — if they ever existed — can't be found.

"It's certainly a mystery," says Hines, who has contacted churches, funeral homes, mill employees and Cone family members looking for records. "This might spark someone who knows of a list."

In the meantime, Lauren Pate says she wants to do something.

"I would love to go there on weekends and plant flowers and mow the grass and maybe put up a sign that says Proximity Cemetery," she says. " ... It's part of our heritage."

Contact Donald W. Patterson at 373-7027 or donpatterson@news-record.com.