Roll Cemetery is located near Haysville off Meridian on 95th Street South. It’s named after Heinrich Wilhelm Roll, a German immigrant who homesteaded here and selected this site for his burial plot.
Heinrich was the first person to be buried at Roll Cemetery. Almost everyone buried here has some traceable familial tie to Heinrich because this was a private family cemetery.
The 10,500-square-foot cemetery is currently owned and maintained by Ohio Township. The last burial here was in 2012.
Heinrich Wilhelm Roll
Heinrich Wilhelm Roll was born in Germany in 1816, and he married Friederika Caroline Ploetz there in 1844. Heinrich worked as a shoemaker and Friederika was said to herd sheep (or maybe geese).
A piece of family lore says “Heinrich told of a tale that when he was walking home through the Black Forrest in Germany after a long day of work he saw his friend coming towards him. He then just disappeared and later he had heard that the same friend died that exact moment he saw him some distance away!”
Heinrich and Friederika boarded the Snap Dragon in Germany with their three sons and arrived in America on April 14, 1856. The couple settled in Wisconsin where they became naturalized citizens, founding members of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Herman, and parents to three more children.
Three of their sons, Heinrich “Henry”, Charles “Carl” and Gustave “Gus”, were the first Rolls to come to Kansas around 1871. Some stories say the brothers briefly stopped in Illinois before choosing Kansas to settle permanently. The rest of the family soon followed them here.
It was said that in the very early days, the Roll brothers collected and carried water from the Cowskin Creek two miles away, traveled days to Arkansas City and back for supplies, and made a living digging wells for other settlers. Later they would travel to Comanche county to trade corn for cedar (for fence posts), and would ultimately make a substantial profit off of their wheat and livestock. Heinrich and his children all found success in the wilds of Kansas.
Heinrich died of prostatitis in 1879. “Grandma Roll” died in 1911.
Four of Heinrich and Frederika’s six children are buried here. Their sons Bill and Ralph are buried elsewhere.
The Roll women married into the Goldsmith and Callaway families, and you will find several of them here.
Anna Roll and Lewis Goldsmith
Anna Roll, the only daughter of Heinrich Roll, married Lewis Goldsmith in 1895. The couple had one daughter, Hazel, who was adopted.
Lewis was just 56 when he died, but he had been sick for almost two years leading up to his death. Almost immediately after he died, it was announced that part of the farm was sold to an oil company. Lewis had already deeded the cemetery to the Roll descendants.
Hazel made the news when she was fourteen for deliriously wandering for three miles through the snow barefoot and in her nightgown. She married a man named Earl Martin and died at her home in Colorado at age 38. She is buried here at Roll Cemetery with the family that raised her.
Gustave Roll and Anna Ludewig
Gus and Anna were married in 1880. The couple had six children, three of whom are buried here.
Anna died at age 53 from heart disease. Gus remarried after Anna died, and he died at age 87 before his second wife. At the time of his death, his estate was valued at $133,000 ($2,988,500 in 2024). His estate was split amongst his children, and his second wife was given $200 a month (about $4,400 in 2024) until her death. She is buried somewhere else.
Ida was the first child born to Gus and Anna Roll. She died from lung fever a few months before her fourth birthday.
Ida shares a gravestone with her four-year-old brother Willie. He was kicked in the stomach by a horse. He survived for eighteen agonizing hours before dying from internal injuries.
Gus and Anna’s daughter’s Daisy and Dora both married into the Calloway family. Daisy is not buried here, but Dora is.
Charles Roll and Emeline McGaha
Charles and Emeline were married in 1879 in Wichita. The couple had six children, but one died in infancy. Charles was described as “one of the bold pioneers who first broke the way for civilization into the grassy wilds of this locality,” and “a very liberal and public-spirited man.”
Emeline died at age 63 from erysipelas, a bacterial skin infection. Charles did not remarry, and he died at age 80 at one of his daughter’s home over a decade after Emeline.
Buried here with them is their first son Charles, who died before his first birthday.
Their son Andy and his wife Emma are also buried here.
Henry Roll
Born Heinrich Gottlieb Roll, Henry was the oldest of his siblings. He doesn’t have a biography in the Chapman brother’s book, but he does get a mention as being one of the first from the Roll family to settle here.
Henry never married and had no known children. He was the first of his siblings to die. He’s buried next to his parents.
Other Rolls at Roll Cemetery
Ralph Roll’s first wife Susan Cedelia McGaha is buried here. Her sister Emeline was married to Ralph’s brother Charles. Susan bore no known children.
She was just 38 when she died of unknown causes. Only her father, mother, siblings, and Ralph were allowed to attend her burial. Her mother and father are also buried here.
Ralph remarried after Susan’s death and is buried with his second wife, with whom he fathered at least seven children.
Two children of Andy Roll and Emma Mogan, and grandchildren of Charles and Emeline Roll, are buried at Roll Cemetery. Helen was their first child, who must have died at birth.
Andy and Emma’s youngest son Lloyd died at age 20 after a long illness and is also buried here.
Ruth Roll was also a grandchild of Charles and Emeline Roll. Her parents were Albert Roll and Lottie Brown.
Ruth died from diabetes at age four and was buried in the family cemetery.
Charles Albert Roll was Ruth’s brother. Charles was a machine gunner during World War II with the “famous” 1st Infantry Division, 5th Field Artillery Battalion, which participated in every major European campaign.
Charles died on the beaches of Normandy, France on D-Day, July 6, 1944. His brother Leslie was there driving an artillery truck when he came across his brother’s body. He loaded Charles onto the truck and kept him safe at unit headquarters. This is the only reason that Charles wasn’t buried in France along with most of the soldiers who died on D-Day. His body was returned to the United States four years later and buried at Roll Cemetery.
The family says Leslie was never the same after the experience of WWII. He is buried next to his brother.
Other cemeteries you might enjoy reading about:
Adams Family Cemetery, Potwin, Kansas
Golden-Eves Cemetery, Harvey County, Kansas
Winfield’s Union-Graham Cemetery
Additional Resources
Roll Cemetery, Relationships to Heinrich Wilhelm
Henrich Wilhelm Roll Genealogy
Portrait and biographical album of Sedgwick County, Kan.
German church records from Herman Township, Wisconsin, 1851-1886
Susie Cordelia Roll, Primitive Christian, May 21, 1901
Grandma Roll Dies, Belle Plaine News, December 14, 1911
3 Miles In Snow, With Bare Feet, In Night Attire, The Wichita Beacon, December 21, 1916
Deaths and Funerals, The Wichita Beacon, February 15, 1921
Henry Roll, The Clearwater News, November 27, 1924
Peck Resident 35 Years, The Wichita Beacon, October 24, 1928
Oil Lease Clause Prevents Drilling In Burial Plot, The Wichita Beacon, November 2, 1928
Charlie Roll, The Monitor-Press, August 25, 1932
Will Reveals Roll Estate At $133,000, The Wichita Beacon, October 20, 1936
Sedgwick County Pioneers Renew Old Friendships, The Wichita Beacon, June 7, 1936
Passes In Colorado, The Wichita Eagle, March 9, 1940
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