GIRARD Expert to look for more burial space

Cemetery plots are $500 for city residents, the sexton says.
By TIM YOVICH
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
GIRARD -- An anthropologist will be called in to figure out not where bodies are buried at the Girard Cemetery, but rather where they aren't.
The skills of Dr. John White, chairman of Youngstown State University's sociology and anthropology department, will be used to find vacant land.
Brian Maynard, sexton at the city-owned cemetery, said he believes about 80 empty plots will be found that could generate at least $40,000 in sales.
Plots sell for $500 to city residents and $600 to nonresidents.
White said that when the city is ready for his services he will bring in about a half-dozen "semipaid" volunteers to dig.
White explained that he doesn't use sophisticated electronic devices to locate undisturbed soil.
Rather, the sod is removed by the city and his volunteers dig through the topsoil, or humus, which is dark because of the decayed vegetation mixed in with it.
The volunteers will dig down 6 to 8 inches to the yellow clay beneath the humus, White said, adding that if the soil was disturbed by previous digging, dark rectangular-shaped areas will be visible in the clay.
Evidence of digging
The rectangles are in the clay because the topsoil mixed with the clay will show if a grave previously had been dug. Clay and topsoil are mixed when backfilled.
"You can't dig a hole and make it look like the original dirt because you disturbed it," White said.
White used the technique several years ago to locate an area in the U.S. Route 422 cemetery that resulted in an additional 150 plots that could be sold.
Councilman Joseph Christopher, D-at large, who was mayor at the time, suggested the technique be used again, Maynard noted.
Maynard said the cemetery expanded by 72 plots last fall when a road was removed in the graveyard's southern portion.
The city has been trying to find added space for graves because of the high cost of buying land to expand.
Crypts for sale
Besides finding unused land in the cemetery to generate money in the financially troubled city, crypts are being sold for the proposed 96-crypt mausoleum.
The city must pre-sell $96,000 worth of crypts before the mausoleum is constructed to ensure that the city can pay for it.
Five crypts have been sold thus far, Maynard said, bringing in $20,000 toward construction.
"That's a nice chunk of change in a couple of weeks," the sexton asserted, especially because the city has advertised only in the bulletin at St. Rose Church.
The crypts sell for between $2,700 and $4,450, depending on the level, Maynard added.
yovich@vindy.com