Topeka ? Neglect had taken its toll on the gravesite of Charles Curtis, the Kansan who was vice president under Herbert Hoover, but Topeka Cemetery officials have stepped in to make improvements.

“It was embarrassing. It looked terrible,” said Sarah McNeive, a member of the cemetery’s board of directors. “It did not befit the grave, the stature, of a vice president of the United States.”

Curtis, who died in 1936 at age 76, had a long and distinguished political career beginning with his service as the Shawnee County attorney. He spent eight terms in the U.S. House starting in 1892, and served 20 years in the Senate, including time as majority leader.

He was vice president with Hoover from 1929 to 1933, when Franklin D. Roosevelt began the first of the four terms he was to win.

Curtis and his wife, Anna, who died of pneumonia in 1924 at age 63, are buried in “Curtis Corner” at the cemetery. A large granite headstone bears the former vice president’s name and dates of service, with footstones marking the two graves.

A tree had buckled curbing near the gravesite and it was difficult to get mowers into the area, which had been generally neglected, according to McNieve and Lowell Manis, the cemetery manager and superintendent.

The gravesite does not have an endowment fund to pay for future care, and McNieve said no members of the Curtis family are known to live in Topeka or visit the gravesite.

Manis recalled that a woman who identified herself as a cousin of Curtis had brought flowers to the graves in 1971.

In the past few weeks, the old curbing at the site has been replaced, and a patterned concrete cover has been laid over the Curtis graves, and around the headstone and footstone.

The base for a new flagpole awaits installation of a 20-foot stainless steel staff.

McNieve and Manis estimate the restoration work will cost about $6,000, and funds are in the process of being raised.

Curtis was one-eighth Kaw Indian, and plans call for engraving the words “Son of the Kanza Nation,” as well as the vice presidential seal, on his headstone.

The first donation for the rehabilitation project came from the Potawtomi Nation, and there have been others from the Sac and Fox Nation, the John Haupt chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, Delta Theta Chi Sorority and local historian Alan Russ.

Donations for the project can be sent to the Topeka Cemetery Assn., in care of Charles Curtis restoration, 1601 S.E. 10th, Topeka 66607.