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Health & Fitness

Eagle Scout Returns Dignity to Burial Site of Pandemic Victims

Red Bank Regional (RBR) senior Jeffrey Villapiano, a Little Silver resident and member of Boy Scout Troop 126, recently achieved scouting’s highest honor of Eagle Scout. The idea for his Eagle Scout project germinated when he accompanied his dad to recover the grave marker of a relative, Jeff’s great aunt. The two-year old had died from influenza in the early 20th century; her gravesite had long been reclaimed by earth and brush.

            Jeff states, “My dad had heard that sometimes the graves were just marked by a lead pipe, as the families could not afford head stones. At most, a small metal plaque would mark their identity.”

            One afternoon, armed with medal detectors and trash pickers, Jeffrey and his dad Gavino scoured the Mount Calvary Cemetery in Neptune. The cemetery was used by many Italian Americans at the early part of the 20th century before regular maintenance occurred or the interred’s names were even recorded.  There they discovered the stone of Michelina Villapiano, Gavino’s aunt who died in 1917. Father and son lovingly repositioned her stone to see the sun again.

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            In Eagle Scout spirit of performing a community service project, he thought he could bring that same joy to other Italian American families and provide a great benefit to the current cemetery superintendent who would then log these names in their official records.

            In the planning of his project, which encompassed several months work, Jeffrey diagrammed the gravesite area creating a document for record keeping and data annotations. Then one afternoon with a group of volunteers and fellow scouts, the area was methodically searched.  The party unearthed seven buried grave markers.  Five were concrete crosses, alas with no identifying marks, but two smaller sites were discovered with epitaphs indicating family names and years of birth and death. The graves indicated, as the Jeffrey suspected, that they were victims of the great influenza pandemic that killed tens of millions of people throughout the world at that time.

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            Jeffrey remarks, “I sincerely hope that my work will spark in the hearts and minds of others a reverence for Italian American history and legacy, but more importantly for the hardship and misfortune of countless people during a very dark period of history as well.”

            At the RBR October School Board meeting, RBR Principal Risa Clay informed the Board of Jeff’s accomplishment in earning his Eagle Scout. She also commended his excellent academic record as an Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate diploma student who has earned a spot on the honor roll or high honor roll throughout his entire high school career.  Jeff is also a member of the National, English and Spanish Honor Societies.  He has participated on several high school sports teams including track, basketball, baseball and football.

            Jeff is a first time Eagle Scout in his family and has also served as a Senior Patrol Leader. He comments on his scouting career, which began when he was only seven years old, “I cannot state enough how much scouting has done for me, particularly in developing leadership and management skills.”

            Jeffrey plans to attend college upon graduation with a possible major in psychology, philosophy or English. He is currently a student in RBR’s Academy of Humanities and Social Science.

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