WARREN City considers requesting bids to maintain, reopen mausoleum

The mausoleum became the city's responsibility many years ago.
By DENISE DICK
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN -- A mausoleum closed since 1998 could start taking new occupants.
Bob Pinti, deputy health commissioner, said the city is considering asking for bids to maintain the Oaklawn Mausoleum at Union Cemetery on Niles Road.
The city inherited the old mausoleum, where indigent burials occur, when its caretakers abandoned it in the 1930s or 1940s, Pinti said.
The city and Warren Township formerly operated Union Cemetery jointly.
The mausoleum was closed because of its poor condition and the expense to repair and maintain it.
"The mausoleum has been officially closed since 1998, when council passed an ordinance prohibiting anyone from being interred there," Pinti said.
He estimated the mausoleum at more than 75 years old, but room remains.
The city wants to discuss putting mausoleum maintenance out to bid with city workers unions before moving forward, he said.
There are two mausoleums at Union Cemetery. The other, Western Reserve Mausoleum, is maintained by a private company and remains in good shape, the deputy health commissioner said.
Historical significance
Wendell Lauth, a Trumbull County historian, said there are six Civil War soldiers buried in the two mausoleums. The soldiers' deaths range from 1901 through 1929, but there isn't a breakdown of which mausoleum contains them.
In November 1996, city workers discovered that vandals had broken into the Oaklawn Mausoleum, damaged marble markers inside and removed the top half of a body from one of the grave chambers, propping it against a wall. At the time, the mausoleum contained 370 bodies.
It was closed shortly thereafter.