The grass is high and helping hands are few at historic Beulah Cemetery this time of year.

But, 78-year-old Eddie Sims remembers, in the early 1940s, walking from his home on what is now Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard down the street to the cemetery and marveling over the well-kept landscape and more than 5,500 graves. When he was 14, he, along with other neighborhood children, would take swingblades to cut the grass that fills the 14 1/2 acres of rolling hills where people have been buried for well over a century.

“It was a well-kept cemetery at the time. Young fellas would come out with a swingblade and they’d give them a little money,” he said. “That’s how they kept it clean.”

Sixty years later, Sims has traded the swingblade for a gas-powered trimmer. He lives in the same house and continues to make trips to the neighboring cemetery, which has become more of an eyesore with vegetation and knee-high grass covering many of the markers. Vicksburg Tabernacle No. 19 Beulah Cemetery, north of the end of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. Suzanne Feliciano * The Vicksburg Post)Independent Order of Brothers and Sisters of Love and Charity, the organization that established the all-black cemetery in 1884, has no living members remaining, and families of those buried there have either moved away or died, Sims said. That makes it hard to keep the cemetery in decent shape.

Not that there haven’t been efforts.

After years of private fund-raising efforts, the Beulah Cemetery Restoration Committee, established to oversee work and care of the cemetery, was handed a special legislative allocation of $50,000 in 1999 to pay for maintenance at the cemetery. But, by 2002, most of that money was used to pay primarily for grass-cutting. Two years later, about 50 city employees – armed with chainsaws, trimmers and swingblades – and a small group from the adjacent Vicksburg National Military Park – spread throughout the cemetery for a cleanup. Committee members turned down an offer from Mayor Laurence Leyens to accept a deed to the property, which would have made it eligible for city maintenance like that performed at Cedar Hill, the city’s public cemetery about two miles from Beulah.

Newer legislation has allowed for city and county labor and equipment to be used at private cemeteries deemed historic, but that hasn’t been done at any private burial ground in the area on a regular basis.

Eddie Sims, 78, right, picks grass off his father’s grave in Beulah Cemetery as he talks Tuesday with North Ward Alderman Michael Mayfield. Suzanne Feliciano * The Vicksburg Post)At Beulah, an agreement with city officials has, for the last few years, allowed crews with the city’s right of way department to spray a chemical mix about four times a year, which costs about $4,000, to kill the weeds and eliminate grass. North Ward Alderman Michael Mayfield said, in addition to the city’s role, it’s the responsibility of the black community to play a role.

“In any given community, somebody’s left to pull up the rear,” he said. “If an individual is not taking responsibility, then the only thing I see left to do is for the black church congregations to pull up the rear.”

He has made the cemetery a priority since he was a county supervisor, a role from which he stepped down when elected to the city post in 2005. He toured the cemetery with Sims in 1996 and said he was “heartbroken” by its appearance.

Mayfield said he plans to send out letters to black church members asking them to help with the effort.

“Most blacks in the area who are 50 and over have got family in this cemetery,” said Mayfield, who is 50. “When I was a little kid, (people were buried) in churches way out in the county. Other than that, this is where you went.” The city’s cemetery was not “whites only,” but there was a preference for the private cemeteries until burials in them became more and more sparse, starting in the mid-1940s. “Most people – they’re either out of town or deceased,” Sims said. “Young people don’t even know Beulah Cemetery exists.”

His interest in the land, shadowed by large, century-old pecan trees, has never ceased. During warmer months, when vegetation is abundant, he spends at least three days a week trimming grass around plots occupied by family members. He also maintains plots for people who are out of town, but send donations so the plots can be maintained.

On Tuesday, Sims worked to remove weeds and grass that had swallowed about 10 plots, including one occupied by his mother and father, Maud and Ed Sims, who died in 1983 and 1989, respectively. He doesn’t mind the work, but wishes the city or state would take over the cemetery and take the burden off the remaining few who care for it.

Sims said he just wants the cemetery to be like it used to be.

“I’d like to see – year after year – it being kept up,” Sims said. “I can’t do it by myself.”