Some of the following is taken from the Hastings, NE Tribune dated
Aug 17, 2005.
At first glance The Swedish and The Verona Danish Cemeteries
appear to be one, but beneath the similarities lies a 125-year-old
feud that has lain dormant for almost as long.
No one knows how the ethnic rivalry began but its only remaining
trace lies here, where stubborn Swedes and Danes who had long
talked, eaten, and worshipped and gone to school together still
chose to be buried separately, among their own kind.
The cemeteries were formally begun in the late 1800s, and many
of the gravestones date from the next several decades, a time of
immense prosperity in Verona.
By the 1920s and 1930s what was left of the famous feud was
confined to the older generations.
Today, less than a century after it boasted a bustling downtown
featuring a shoe shop, barber shop, post office, bank, lumber yard,
a two-room school house, hardware store and three churches, Verona
has been reduced to a few rusted-out abandoned shacks among a small
grove of trees.
One major common ground between the Swedes and the Danes was the
Verona Free Church but declining population forced it to be closed
and town down.
The area’s residents have always responded to the fact that they
have two adjacent cemeteries with a figurative shrug of the
shoulders: no one knows why the feud began – it may go as far back
as the Old Country – but it’s always been that way.
“There really wasn’t any animosity between the two. It was just
that if you were Swedish, you got buried in one cemetery, and if
you were Danish, you got buried in the other.” One resident
reported.
I have driven by this location countless times and didn’t know
any of the history until I read it in the Hastings Daily Tribune
and thought I would share it with the geocaching community. Take
your time and look around there is some interesting things to be
seen here.
The cache is located inside the fence no need to cross it once
you are inside.
Please be respectful of your surroundings. I was going to place
just one cache in the area but I didn’t want to favor one location
over the other so there are 2 caches close together here.
Placed By A Nebraskache Member