It’s often hard to maintain a cemetery with obstacles such as
money, growing grass and poor weather conditions, and those that
visit the cemetery sometimes find things to their disliking.
Memorial Day is probably the biggest day of the year when people
visit the graves of their loved ones, and complaints on the
condition of some local cemeteries have been made as Memorial Day
has arrived.
A former Bradford resident, who wished to remain anonymous, had
written to The Era about the condition of McKean Memorial Park in
Lafayette.
“The cemetery itself is in horrible shape,” she said shortly
after burying her mother in the park. “The roads are so bad the
hearse couldn’t get near the grave, so the pallbearers had to
trudge across the cemetery, trying not to trip. The grounds hadn’t
been mowed in God knows when – big clumps of grass.”
Scott and Chase Real Estate Agency is in charge of the upkeep of
McKean Memorial Park. When asked about the maintenance of the park,
Marie Chase said Thursday they have people that work full-time at
the park, and rain and snow hinders in its upkeep.
“It takes one week for our fellows to get around the park one
time on mowing,” Chase said. “If we get a rainy day or a couple
rainy days, we’re behind the eight ball. Weather gives us more
problems than people.”
The same sort of sentiments were given by those that take care
of the mowing for St. Bernard and Oak Hill cemeteries.
Chase wasn’t able to answer anything specific on the maintenance
of the roads in the park. She just said the maintenance crew takes
care of it.
Oak Hill Cemetery is maintained by Wright Monumental Works.
Ralph Rose of Wright Monumental noted there’s not very much money
in the cemetery trust to take care of the roads after the mowing,
trimming and other maintenance duties are done. He did note,
however, this year they’ve been grateful to the Luther Excavation
Service, who volunteered their time and equipment to grade the
roads in the cemetery as well as filling the badly washed out
roads.
Rose said they’re looking to get more funding with the help of
state Rep. Martin Causer, R-Turtlepoint, for a grant to help in the
maintenance of the roads.
In addition to the conditions of the cemeteries, some other
issues involve missing flowers, flags and other decorations placed
on the graves.
“In the last 13 months since my husband passed away, I have had
to replace two urns, three flags and several artificial flowers in
the vase at the crypt in the new mausoleum at St. Bernard
cemetery,” Louise Stolz of Bradford said. “Someone had taken a
boxwood wreath, a flag and poinsettias that had been there over the
winter months. … I change flowers every season and holiday, and
everytime I go to put new ones in, the others are gone. I don’t
know who is doing this but I want it stopped.”
There might be a little confusion with who’s in charge of what
at St. Bernard Cemetery. Dom Piganelli of Always Green Landscaping
is in charge of the maintenance of the cemetery, which includes
digging graves, sealing entombments, trimming and mowing, but he
said Proper’s Florist and Greenhouse does the flower work at the
cemetery, planting flowers around the graves and delivering flowers
and decorations for the mausoleum.
In addition to those two groups, there is St. Bernard’s Cemetery
Association that oversees the financial upkeep.
“There may be some types of regulation (on how long flowers and
decorations are on the graves) the cemetery association have, but I
don’t believe it’s policed and enforced,” Scott Ordiway of Proper’s
Greenhouse said about St. Bernard Cemetery. “Out at Willow Dale
Cemetery, I know Johnny Platko takes care of that himself. Well
before Easter, I know he takes off any Christmas decorations. He
keeps it pretty cleaned up.”
Calls to the Willow Dale Cemetery Association were not returned
as of press time Sunday.
Rose said the Oak Hill maintenance crew tries to mow around
decorations and flowers at the cemetery. He also said there’s no
regulations or rules on decorations, but plastic flowers with wires
in them create a danger when mowing since the wires wrap around the
shaft.
Chase said they permit potted plants on the graves at McKean
Memorial Park for about one week, starting from Memorial Day. She
explained that if people don’t pick up the potted plants after a
week, they clear the park on the Monday after Memorial Day.
One exception to that is for flowers left in the bronze vases on
the graves.
“Flowers are left there as long as they’re nice,” Chase
explained. “They’re taken out in the middle of October and (the
vases are) turned upside down in the ground for the winter
months.”
Chase said people are made aware of these requirements when they
buy a marker, and they also put an advertisement in the paper after
Memorial Day, letting people know they should take their
decorations outside of the bronze vases by Sunday if they want
them.
Chase also said there’s no safeguard against people stealing
decorations from the graves, which happens occasionally.
Piganelli, Ordiway and Rose all said they pull the dead flowers
when people don’t take care of that themselves. Piganelli also said
in the spring, they pull out all the old flags and straighten up
the holders, and Rose said discolored and faded flags are taken off
in the fall.
Veterans groups and boy and cub scout troops help put the flags
on the graves at the local cemeteries, but sometimes they miss some
veterans’ graves.
Chase said she’s available on the Saturday before Memorial Day
in the chapel at McKean Memorial Park with extra flags and holders
if a relative’s grave does not have a flag and should have one. She
also said the flags are taken out in the fall.
Piganelli also with St. Bernard Cemetery being on a big hill it
leads to a number of problems when it rains. He said people working
on the hill are required to wear spiked shoes in those dangerous
conditions, and it’s too tough to mow since the tractors get
weighed down. He also said they try to keep the water pumped out of
the holes when digging graves on the lower parts of the hill.
Rose also said they have had issues of vandalism with the family
mausoleums at Oak Hill Cemetery some years ago but haven’t had any
other problems such as people stealing decorations. Also, he
mentioned they do have some problems with keeping motorcycles and
four-wheelers off the property.
