Demmer Freeman, far right, holds a rose to place atop her step-grandmother’s casket at the Vicksburg National Cemetery Monday as Dillon-Chisley Funeral Director Larry Chisley, holding a bouquet, passes out flowers to other members of Mabel Stevenson’s family.(The Vicksburg Post/MELANIE DUNCAN)

[12/11/01] Demmer Freeman watched from the manicured hills of the Vicksburg National Cemetery Monday as her stepgrandmother, Mabel Stevenson, was laid to rest beside her grandfather, Charlie James Stevenson.

The cemetery is expansive, but burials are rare. In fact, only 10 people will follow Mrs. Stevenson, who was 89 when she died Dec. 3, to the 40 acres rising from the banks of the Yazoo River that hold the remains of 18,300 people.

“My grandpa did that,” Freeman said of making the arrangements for the burial in the federal preserve. “He always said before he died that she’d be buried next to him.”

The cemetery, established in December 1866, was created as Union dead from the Civil War were brought to the hills, terraced to accommodate a final resting place for them. Afterward, it was open to veterans, their spouses and dependents. But it is officially closed now, said park historian Terry Winschel. “All available grave spaces are either filled or reserved.”

Stevenson reserved the grave site 41 years ago, before the park’s cut-off period in 1960. The World War II Army veteran died in 1962.

After the 10 people who have reserved places in the cemetery are interred, “there will be no more burials at Vicksburg National Cemetery,” Winschel said.

“It’s not an everyday occurrence,” said Larry A. Chisley, funeral director for Dillon-Chisley, which handled Mrs. Stevenson’s arrangements.

Under federal law, grave sites are provided free as a benefit of military service, but that has to be contingent on available space.

“Any veteran that does not have a reservation in this cemetery, we are arranging to bury in the national cemetery in Natchez or Biloxi,” Chisley said.