The stones were read in 1997 by Carmella Kranz and her friend Penny Lemon. The cemetery is now known as Gateway Gardens. Carmella says it took them 10 days to read the stones in both Old and New Picker's cemeteries. They started this because when they wanted records for Old Pickers, no one knew who had them. If Carmella comes up with an obituary thay says the deceased was buried in Old Pickers or New Pickers, she adds them to the list.
The following is taken from "OLD CEMETERIES St. Louis County, MO. Volume III" by the St. Louis Genealogical Society, 1984.
"The original "Old Picker's" -- named for the minister who founded the cemetery (Holy Ghost E & R) was located in the Kansas-Wyoming-Louisiana-Arsenal area in south St. Louis. A 20-acre plot, it was opened in 1845 and many victims of the great cholera epidemic of 1849 were interred there. The last burial there was in 1901, but it was not until 1916 that the last bodies were moved.
"New Picker" (actually our present Old Picker) was opened in 1862. It was sometimes called The Independent Evangelical Protestant Cemetery but was always more familiarly known by its nickname.
Subsequently another cemetery was opened on Gravois, across the road from "New Picker," which then, inevitably became "Old Picker." This cemetery is still in existence but was not in very good condition in the early part of 1983."