His work has gotten attention in city board meetings, with officials praising the look of the cemetery since Rhodes and his crew turned their attention to it.
“I just started this year. It was probably in April when I started. So this is my first year, and it's been a challenge, but, it's a rewarding thing. I enjoy doing it. It's nice and peaceful out here,” Rhodes said.
He said he does see a lot of visitors to the cemetery while he works as relatives visit the resting place of their loved ones. Rhodes, who was raised in the area himself, has family at Rose Hill, too. “My parents are buried here,” he said. “I have aunts and uncles that are buried here, and one set of my grandparents is buried there and my cousins.”
The work of Rhodes and his assistants has involved landscaping, keeping the grass cut and clearing limbs and brush, but they also attend to specific graves. That has taken up the crew’s time most recently. “We've had a lot of plots that have sunken in, and so right now we've been trying to fill up some of those. We've been doing that for the last couple of weeks. And I've also had the prisoners out here, and we've been straightening up some of the tombstones that are leaning or falling over. We're trying to get everything back in shape,” he said, adding that Downtown Maintenance Supervisor John Wheelington has also helped.
The response from the public to the Rose Hill work has been encouraging, Rhodes said. “I’ve gotten a lot of feedback from people thanking me for for doing the job, and they've really bragged on on how it looks. I had support from the city manager [J.R. Wilson], Ronald Kidd [Maintenance Supervisor] and everybody has been real nice and helped me out when I needed help.”
City Manager J.R. Wilson was asked this week for his assessment of the work at Rose Hill.
“The City of Hope Parks and Tourism Department has done a great job maintaining the Rose Hill Cemetery, and I can't speak highly enough about Director Summer Chambers, Supervisor Ronald Kidd, Primary Cemetery Maintenance Worker Jim Rhodes and other support staff,” he said.
“They have all worked together so well and have done a terrific job. I don't believe we have received one complaint regarding the cemetery this year. I would also be remiss, if I didn't thank the Rose Hill Cemetery Association for their funding and support. Without them, none of this would be possible,” Wilson said.
Rhodes will be taking a break soon for knee replacement surgery set for October 17th, but will be returning soon after, likely working fewer than the 30 hours a week required during the warmer months. He added that if anyone has any requests for something needing taken care of at the cemetery to either come to the Hope Parks and Rec Office at the Fair Park Community Center or come see him at Rose Hill around the noon hour.
Some photos of Rose Hill during the fine weather on Tuesday can be seen below.
