Kimball Erdman Recognized for Research on Rohwer Cemetery

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Kimball Erdman, assistant professor of landscape architecture in the Fay Jones School of Architecture

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Kimball Erdman, assistant professor of landscape architecture in the Fay Jones School of Architecture, will receive an Oakley Certificate of Merit Award from the Association for Gravestone Studies. The award recognizes work that has furthered the organization’s mission to foster appreciation of the cultural significance of gravestones and burying grounds through their study and preservation.

Oakley Certificate of Merit Awards will be presented to Kimball Erdman and Johanna Miller Lewis, a professor at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. Awards will be presented at 6 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 5, in the second floor Reception Room of the MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History, 503 E. Ninth St., in Little Rock. The event is free and open to the public.

Erdman and Lewis are being recognized for their work at the Rohwer Relocation Center Cemetery, a World War II Japanese confinement site in Desha County, Ark. Lewis, associate dean of the UALR Graduate School and professor of history at the Little Rock campus, began a project to stabilize and restore the cemetery markers after receiving a 2011 National Park Service grant. Erdman prepared a Historic American Landscapes Survey, including measured drawings, photography and a written history, with the assistance of his students in a historic landscape preservation course.

Erdman and Lewis collaborated with the Arkansas Heritage Sites program at the Arkansas State University to use maps and research in their interpretation for site visitors and with the Center for Advanced Spatial Technologies at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville to prepare a laser three-dimensional scan of the site. The cemetery and a smokestack are the only physical remnants visible on the 500-acre site where more than 10,000 Americans of Japanese descent were interned and 186 died between 1942 and 1945.

“I am very grateful for the opportunities I’ve had to be involved with various projects at the Rohwer Memorial Cemetery,” Erdman said. “It is truly a unique and significant place that deserves recognition and stewardship. The ongoing efforts at the cemetery have also provided invaluable experiences for students from the Fay Jones School of Architecture, who in turn have made significant contributions to the work.”

The Association for Gravestone Studies is a non-profit organization based in Greenfield, Mass., with members from many countries who share interests in art, history, art history, genealogy, archaeology, anthropology, conservation and material culture. For more information, visit the organization’s website.