Financial struggle amid a proud history

November, said she inherited a big problem.

“Since I’ve been receiver, I’ve been working as hard as I can to bring this place back to the park it once was,” she said.

According to Rogers, that includes repairs she’s made to the roof of the main office and two garages, the removal of tons of debris from the grounds, the digitization of long-abandoned burial records and the replacement of the rundown entrance gate.

“We got a number of estimates and they came in excess of $30,000 for brickwork alone,” she said. “That doesn’t include the foundation or the fencing. Rust runs through wrought iron like a cancer. Some of the fencing was beyond repair — and, if it can be done, to do it would be way more money than we have. We’re doing the best we can with very limited funds.”

Rogers said she was taken aback by the lawsuit, filed by attorney David Dore on behalf of Willis.

“I guess you’re damned if you do, and damned if you don’t,” she said. *** During Mother’s Day weekend this month, sisters Tameka and Andrea Nimmons arrived at Frederick Douglass to visit their mom, Claire Ann Nimmons, buried there 30 years ago.

The problem is, they still don’t know exactly where the grave is — another indication, Willis said, of deep-seated mismanagement.

“I have the grave number but I can only find (the) section, I can’t find the actual grave. Everything is poorly marked,” said Tameka Nimmons, 42, of Brownsville, Brooklyn, who resorted to placing a few flowers under a tree and singing a biblical hymn as her sister stood silently nearby.

“I want to put a (head)stone. My mom died when I was 11 years old. It’s like finally I’m an adult, I can afford to get my mom a stone, I want to give her a stone.

“(The other day, I was) told that my mom was in a nontitled grave so we couldn’t give her a headstone . . . that you’re not going to find her because she’s in a nontitled grave.”

“But I don’t see why not, it’s not a free grave. We paid for it,” she said. “It’s still hard because you cannot properly go and say hello or goodbye.”

Andrea Nimmons, 35, of East New York, Brooklyn, added: “I wanted to talk to (my mom). There’s a lot I need to speak with her about. And I just have to leave flowers by the tree?”

Tameka Nimmons was also upset by the cemetery’s new gate.

“I was like, is this the way we come in?” she said. “It looks like the state park.”

“The gate is the marker that you’ve come to a place that’s just not something that’s typical . . . . Without the gate, it’s like where am I walking into, what am I walking into?” *** Plot owner Pamela Marshall said watching the deterioration of Frederick Douglass tore her heart.

“It was very disheartening to see it fall into such ruin,” said Marshall, 56, of Elm Park, S.I. “My grandparents, my parents and my aunt are all buried here. This was a dying cemetery. It was just embarrassing.”

Yet since Rogers was appointed receiver, Marshall said, she’s seen efforts to restore the park's prestige.

“The cemetery is coming back alive,” she said. “Lynn is opening it up to the community, and people are getting involved. We want to help. She has connections and that’s what we need.”

“I would love to return the cemetery back to what it was in the 1930s," she added. "But this is not the ’30s. There is no money to make it look like that. We have to move forward, and this is progress.” *** Willis and Rogers both agree that Frederick Douglass should no longer be in receivership. And despite their differences of opinion and approach, both say they’d also like to see the land protected.

“It is our intention to get it on the New York State (Register) and National Register of Historic Places,” said Rogers, whose 18-month tenure is slated to end next spring. “I have every reason to believe we will do that successfully.”

Yet Willis said dismantling the gate is eradicating a piece of that very history Rogers seeks to preserve.

“We said we don’t want to tear it down, that we want to fix it,” she said, referring to a meeting last month where Willis and other plot owners expressed dissatisfaction with the decision.

“When you bury someone, some of that money goes into a fund to help pay for the upkeep of the cemetery. We paid to keep it up. My mother died 50 years ago, and 50 years later I still have to fight for her to have a decent resting place.”

As Willis gave one last look at the heap of bricks in the green waste removal bin, a renewed expression of determination spread across her face.

“I want the old fence back,” she said. “And I’m going to make it happen.”