By Heather Lusk
At the corner of Mulberry Street and Turkey Foot Road sit three headstones. Beyond the stones, behind a fence, are three larger cemetery stones.
The name John L. McCracken is the only one legible. But McCracken is buried in Indianapolis. As far as anyone can tell, he never lived in Zionsville.
So how did these gravestones appear in Boone County?
The home’s original owner, Eugene Pock, was a heavy machine operator who moved old headstones and gravestones, replacing them with new ones. He was allowed to keep the discarded stones, so he used them as backfill for the steep slope by his house.
The house was eventually passed along to his granddaughter, Jennifer Kelshaw, who lives there with her husband Gary Kelshaw.
After an automobile crashed into the home’s fence, the smaller gravestones were placed at the corner of the property to prevent further accidents. Gary Kelshaw said the stones have stopped at least eight cars since they were added.
One motorcyclist decades ago wasn’t so lucky and was fatally injured after ploughing into the side of the house when Pock lived there, according to Kelshaw. Several boulders were put into the yard after that accident.
The smaller headstones were discovered by pipeline workers several years ago while digging on the property and stopped their work in a panic.
“They got scared,” Kelshaw said.
Kelshaw doesn’t know how many other stones might be lying beneath the earth, but Pock’s son told him the yard is filled with them.
“I don’t know how many more we can find down there,” Kelshaw said.
Many curious people have knocked on his door to ask about the headstones, often nervous that there are bodies buried at the corner.
“No, we don’t have people buried here,” he said.
