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GREENSBORO — Proximity Cemetery may soon rise from the dead.

Gary Maness, a Greensboro man who has 23 family members buried there, says he wants to help resurrect the all-but-forgotten burial ground on Phillips Avenue near U.S. 29 North.

Maness, who can find only about half his relatives' graves, wants to form a nonprofit preservation association that would take ownership of the cemetery and bring the place back to, well, life.

"This isn't about me," Maness said as he toured the cemetery Wednesday morning. "It's about these people (buried here) and their families."

Maness, a 50-year-old Procter & Gamble worker, said he was inspired to act by a story in the News & Record last week that described the run-down condition of the former Cone Mills cemetery.

The story also said the owner wants to get rid of it.

When Maness learned that, he called Jim Peeples, general partner of Revolution Property Holdings, which bought the cemetery and some more desirable holdings when Cone filed for bankruptcy in 2004.

"I think it's a great idea," Peeples said. "I told Gary we would cooperate in any way we could, including absorbing any legal expenses in the transfer.... I am hopeful there will be a great improvement in the whole situation."

Currently, that situation isn't good.

Cone established the graveyard about 1900 to provide free burial space for its mill workers.

One estimate puts the number of graves there at 2,000. Maness figures nearly two-thirds of them are unmarked. An extended search for burial records has turned up nothing.

The cemetery covers more than 3 acres and is surrounded on three sides by a housing development. Residents use the graveyard as a cut-through to Phillips Avenue.

A dead tree stands near the center. Stones have toppled. Vines and weeds grow along a fence that lines three sides of the cemetery.

"It looks like something from a horror movie," said John Chandler, the mayor of Cooleemee, who has been unable to find the grave of his great-grandfather. "I am sure, in its day, it was very well kept."

People with family buried at Proximity like Maness' approach.

"I think it would be great if you can get somebody to participate," said Steve Coble, who has grandparents buried there. "(But) you know how people are now. They don't want to get involved if they have to put a lot of money out."

Coble has already taken an initial step to improve the place. On a recent visit, he found that the cemetery sign had fallen off a pole. He took it home and cleaned it.

"It was all mildewed," he said. "You could hardly read it.... (Now), it looks real good, real good."

Last week, Coble attached the sign to a tree.

Maness hopes to encourage people such as Coble to join the association, which he hopes to have in place by early 2008.

"I'm sort of a research-head," Maness said. "I want to cover all my bases before I jump into something.... The first order of business is getting an association up and running."

Eventually, Maness said, he wants to inventory grave sites and check with the state archaeologist about how to clean and restore tombstones and how to repair sunken graves.

He also wants to clean up debris; put up a new fence and extend it along Phillips Avenue; add a gate that would go between the two brick columns standing beside the street; replace an arch that once connected the two pillars; repair the drive; clean out weeds and vines; take out the dead tree; plant grass, flowers and shrubs; establish a Web site; and start fundraising and membership drives.

"I have never been an activist," Maness said. "Normally, I have been in the background. But sometimes you have to come out of your shell .... Sometimes you have to stand up for what you believe in, and this is my stand."

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