SANFORD, Fla. — A group that has worked for years to clean up and restore an historic African-American cemetery in Sanford recently helped a couple people find a loved one buried there.

“I bust out in tears. I was like, ‘O my God, I just never knew,’ ” Brenda Hartsfield said.  

As she walked through Page Jackson Cemetery, an historic burial ground in Sanford, a headstone caught her eye. On it was the last name of the woman who raised her.   

“This here is my mother, Ms. Sarah Scipio,” Hartsfield said. 

After more than 40 years, she stumbled upon her mother’s burial site.

“If I did not know. I’m quite sure a lot of people in Goldsboro, in Sanford, that don’t know either,” Hartsfield said. 

 It would be easy for people not to know. Hundreds of graves are hidden in thick brush on the property, several of them veterans.  

Jennifer Eve and her team, the Central Florida Cemetery Project, helped Hartsfield and her family, and they want to help others.      

For a couple years, they have been cleaning and repairing headstones, cutting down the brush, and trying to find out more about those buried on the hallowed ground.  

“Knowing that the ancestors and the family can finally find their loved ones, be able to visit their loved ones, be able to see their headstones, really is a passion of ours,” Eve said.  

But the team has hit a snag. They have restore much of the city-owned portion, but not the areas that are privately owned.    

The Goldsboro West Side Community Historical Association owns part of the property.   

“We were having volunteers with chainsaws come out there — trucks and everything,” Francis Oliver, director of the Goldsboro Westside Historical Association, said. “But we said, ‘No, somebody might get hurt.’ ”

Oliver said his association has tried to get money for professional cleanup and restoration through grants, but so far, it has been unsuccessful with the county and the state.   

“Hopefully, we can get some money on a national level, but that graveyard is going to get restored,” Oliver said.