But she's no detective.
Elizabeth Wilson-Agin is a geophysicist who owns her own consulting business specializing in finding unmarked graves.
"I'm the only one in the United States who does what I do that I know of," Wilson-Agin said. "Surprisingly I get a lot of people that call me and want my help finding unmarked graves."
Wilson-Agin teaches a physical geology class in Marion through Butler County Community College and recently conducted a demonstration for her geology class at the Pilsen Cemetery.
"I noticed the ground depressions out there, so I decided to go ahead and conduct a survey for them," she said.
Wilson-Agin said her career path was already clear as a youngster.
"I've wanted to do archeology since I was a really little kid," she said. "I went to archeological field school and they had geophysicists there. I knew then that's what I wanted to do."
A geophysicist, Wilson-Agin said, is "someone who explores the earth with technology."
Most use seismic data in their search of oil production or in earthquake studies, according to Wilson-Agin,
"But those are deeper whereas I deal with more shallow sites," she said.
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"When I came to graduate school, I wanted to do an archeological site, so I went to the Kansas State Historical Society and asked if they had a site I could do research on," she said. "They said, 'Why don't you research unmarked graves because we get calls all the time and we can't get geophysics to work in this type of soil.'
"They told me if I could find a way to make geophysics work in Kansas clay-rich soils I would be a landmark in Kansas archeology. So it was a challenge for me to make it work."
Wilson-Agin accepted the challenge head on.
"I did my master's thesis on the feasibility of locating unmarked graves with geophysical technology, and I found it was successful in this type of soil," she said.
Paramount in the success Wilson-Agin enjoys is a Canadian-born instrument called an electro-magnetic conductivity meter.
"It's used mainly to measure soil salinity," she said. "Not every piece of equipment is successful for every type of soil, and this is predominantly successful in clay-rich soils.
"Ground penetrating radar doesn't work in clay-rich soils, but would work in sandy soil. So what instrument I have success with is based on where I go to work."
Wilson-Agin said she doesn't advertise her services, but still manages to keep busy.
"The historical society has steered people in my direction," she said. "But basically I get hired by word of mouth."
The reasons her services are requested are as varied as the Central Plains themselves.
"I've been hired by a funeral company, a cemetery board and the county hired me at one location," she said. "There was the potential for land development near where they thought unmarked graves might exist, so they needed to know for sure before they could proceed.
"One lady whose family owned seven plot spaces was getting ready to pass, so she wanted to be sure she could be buried there-the cemetery board hired me to survey the rest of the area," she added.
"Many of the old cemeteries haven't kept accurate records throughout the years, so they don't know if there are unmarked graves. For them, I'm just telling them where the disturbances exist."
To date, Wilson-Agin estimates she has located about 800 unmarked graves.
Wilson-Agin mixes a vast amount of knowledge with common sense to begin her searches.
"Knowing a little bit about how soil works and the properties of soil when its been disturbed is the first step," she said. "Over time, disturbed soil begins to sink compared to non-disturbed soil. So you can look for ground depressions."
Much like in a flower pot, Wilson-Agin said soil in graves compacts when it comes in contact with water.
"If you don't add soil on top of the dirt, a depression will form," she said. "Also there are a lot of vegetative differences that show up as a pattern, so you can stand back, especially in the spring, and see patterns one after the other.
"In one cemetery, they planted grass seed on the graves that weren't drought resistant, and it was obvious where the graves were," she added. "Also, soil properties change with depth, so when you bring that depth up to the surface, soil colors will change over an unmarked grave as opposed to non-disturbed soil."
Wilson-Agin said the advent of Europeans into North America some 1,500 years ago also helps her search for unmarked graves because of their introduction of Catholic and Christian burial practices, which orient burials in east-west positions.
"It says in Matthew 24:27, 'For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be,'" she said. "So graves have people facing east for the second coming of Christ."
Once Wilson-Agin has targeted a specific area to be surveyed, a grid is established around that area.
"I set up my grids, usually in 10-meter-by-10-meter squares," she said. "I flag the perimeter every half meter and I walk in straight transects back and forth."
Wilson-Agin uses a rope to make sure she walks in a straight line.
"I choose half-meters because if there's a baby grave, a meter will be too big," she said. "Also, the width of a grave is sometimes less than a meter, especially if the grave has deteriorated or collapsed.
"Not every body is in a vault," she said. "Some people might just be put in the ground so a meter is too large."
Once the grid is established, Wilson-Agin gets out the electro-magnetic conductivity meter to explore the mysteries beneath the earth's surface.
"I take five readings per second and the data is recorded on a field computer that has a graph," she said. "Anywhere there's a disturbance, it spikes up or down.
"Depending on if there's a void in the ground or air space indicative of an intact grave, I'm measuring the conductivity of the soil," she said.
"Air does not conduct electricity so there will be a large drop in the values. However, if there is metal in the ground, metal is a good conductor of electricity so the values will spike up."
Also easily detected, Wilson-Agin said, is the difference between disturbed and non-disturbed soils.
"Non-disturbed soil is more porous and less conductive and again that'll decrease the readings, but not as much as if there were an intact grave," she said. "So just going over an area and looking at that area, I can tell what's in the ground and what condition it's in as I go."
Once the grid is covered and the data has been collected, Wilson-Agin heads home to analyze her findings.
"I go back to the computer and upload all the data into a software program and I make the maps," she said. "I can GPS (Global Positioning System) the site so I'll know the exact latitude and longitude coordinates of where each disturbance is at so if people want to go back and put a marker there, they can do that.
"At least it prevents future disturbances in the area."
Wilson-Agin said she began her career about 21/2 years ago, but initially didn't take advantage of modern technology.
"I surveyed a cemetery that had about 700 unmarked graves," she said. "I didn't have a date logger at the time so at every half meter interval I sat down on the ground and took four measurements and wrote them down.
"It took me three weeks to write down 6,400 numbers," she sighed. "That's when I realized I needed a data logger."
Wilson-Agin said the aforementioned cemetery was a potter's field where criminals, underprivileged, minorities and babies were buried.
"Originally, the graves were marked with wooden stakes but not referenced on a map," she said. "But a prairie fire swept across in the early 1920s and it burned all the markers."
She said a memorial will be erected on the site.
Wilson-Agin is paid $25 per hour for her work, including on-site and in-lab work.
"I'll give an on-site analysis for no charge to tell the client how long I think it'll take to do the survey," she said. "Usually I'll work for about three days at the most, and then I have about five days of lab work to process the data and make the maps."
She charges an additional fee for mileage to and from sites.
Wilson-Agin said even at those prices, her services are a relative bargain.
"I rent my machine from Canada and it costs about $1,000 per month," she said. "I'm kind of a bargain because most geophysicists charge around $100 per hour."
Wilson-Agin doesn't worry about running out of work.
"We have evidence of humans here about 12,000 years ago and people had to be buried someplace," she said.
Conceding that no non-invasive instrument is 100 percent accurate, Wilson-Agin said, "You definitely know when something is there.
"The benefit of doing it like this is you don't disturb what's beneath the ground and you preserve the history of the ground," she said. "When I'm done, I pick up the flags and leave and you'd never know I was there."
Making a living in cemeteries is an ironic twist of fate, according to Wilson-Agin.
"My dad did a ton of genealogy and we spent all of our summer vacations in cemeteries doing research," she said. "I know my dad would say this is where your great-great-grandparents are supposed to be buried, but they didn't have a gravestone and I sure wish we knew where they were.
"I know there are so many families across the world that have that same situation, so it's fulfilling when I find an unmarked grave."
Wilson-Agin lives in Emporia and can be reached at 620-340-8101 or by e-mail at infinitygeo@ yahoo.com.
