Cemetery Closed

Are you kidding me? Let's hope the city and preservation groups involved can save this cemetery.

Thanks to Stephanie at Southern Graves for sharing this link on facebook.

Huge Historic Cemetery Shuts Down : MyFoxPHILLY.com

Angry

Just minutes after entering the Kelly Cemetery I saw this. I was so angry I wanted to scream. I have seen my share of cemeteries where the big old stones have been toppled over, but never this. Should I not be shocked? The person[s] that did this should be made to publicly apologize to any living family and the community. Then he/she should be ordered to do 5 years of community service in the local cemeteries, mowing, raking and trimming, with the work being inspected daily. And, they would need to make an annual contribution to the Association of Gravestone Studies [or like organization] for those same 5 years. It still makes me mad, because the others I didn't photograph had profanity written on them.

Cemetery Vandalism

I find an article like this too often when browsing through the microfilmed newspapers. What satisfaction can come from such an act?

Hutchinson News Herald 12/12/1955

Tombstones used in construction of new home

Pooh, Poohs Ghosts
Missourian Uses Tombstones in New Home
Bolivar, MO

Ghosts don't worry Frank Karpek, ozark stonemason, who is using tombstones in the construction of his new farm home.

Karpek and his three sons moulded concrete bricks for the house and fashioned gravestones from an abandoned cemetery into ornamental arches above the windows and doors. The few remaining markers at the neglected graves will be laid as flagstones around the house. Karpek plans to clear the cemetery of weeping willow trees and sow the land in clover.


Hutchinson News
12/17/ 1936, Page 15

WHAT!!! How could that happen? Did it being reported cause any concern or outrage by the locals? Is the farm house still standing?

A neglected and / or abandoned cemetery does not mean that the people buried there deserve to have their tombstones removed and their resting places lost. I think that stonemason was cheap in using them instead of crafting what he needed from another source. Shame on you Frank Karpek!