Spooks in Sharon Hill Cemetery

By Mary Zielinski
More history than Halloween, Beyond the Grave brought ten of Sharon Center’s pioneers to life Sunday. And they told visitors about surviving cholera, a steam boat crash and refusing to attend church once an organ was installed.

The program at the Sharon Center United Methodist Church and adjoining Sharon Center Cemetery was arranged by the Johnson County Historical Society. Coupled with a soup supper it was a fundraiser for the church’s youth program.
Tours, in groups of ten, started at 6 p.m. led by a guide with a lantern and started with meeting the Reverend Joseph Bussard, a circuit riding preacher, whose firey sermon one Sunday in North Liberty led to building the Sharon United Brethren Church. One of the oldest of the “ghosts” was Ida Brunbacher Niffenegger, granddaughter of a Swiss immigrant who died of cholera at sea, who lived her 97 years in Johnson County.
Gideon Jacobs, the son of Swiss immigrant who came to the United States in 1851, was a charter member of the Sharon Evangelical Church, and in later years was the cemetery’s grave digger.
All the “ghosts” buried in the cemetery sat or stood near their gravestones, including Fanny Ressler, wife of John Jacob Ressler, who helped build the Old Capitol in Iowa City. Fanny was the one who, after hearing Rev. Bussard, set out to create the Sharon church and succeeded.
For Adam Schwimley, getting to Sharon Township met surviving cholera and a steamboat crash en route from Ohio. He later married Rev. Bussard’s daughter and their son became the minister at the Sharon Center church.
Those involved in the preparing the program and doing research for it were church members as well as University of Iowa Museum Studies Service Learning students.