From JFA newsletter no. 7, Winter 1992
During the past 8 years since the Association was first organized, Roland Junkins has spent a great portion of his time and money working on the restoration of the Junkins Family Burial Grounds in the York, Maine area. This past two or three years, he has spent a portion of almost every week traveling to York and cleaning out brush, cutting trees, pulling stumps, mowing grass, searching for other headstones, researching to identify other family sites and burial ground, repairing headstones, resetting headstones, repairing and repainting fences and even having new headstones made and set to replace those that crumbled away in his fingers after finding them under several inches of soil. All of this was done at his own expense, including the cement, paint, epoxy, chemicals to clean the headstones and the hundreds of hours of his time. He has worked with the Old York Historical Society to get one of the Burial Grounds, which was listed as a Kingsbury Cemetery, officially renamed as a Junkins Family Cemetery and getting them to recognize two other sites as Junkins Family Burial Grounds, which were never before even shown on the Society's map of York Burial Grounds.
Prior to the 1992 family reunion, the Board of Directors voted to award Roland a Life Membership in the Junkins Family Association as an attempt to recognize the effort that he has put in for the family over the years. The award was presented at the Saturday evening family dinner and was a surprise to him.
The Life Membership award presented to Roland Junkins was in the form of one of the handmade bricks from the main chimney of the Junkins Garrison house and had an engraved metal plate attached to the face with the following inscription:
JUNKINS FAMILY ASSOCIATION
is pleased to award Life Membership in the Association
honoris causa toRoland Winslow Junkins
for his Sustained, Outstanding Contributions
to the Family and the Association
By Order of the Board of Directors - Portsmouth, New Hampshire - August 14, 1992
