Respect for dead demands rehabilitation of cemetery

All cemeteries, burial sites and repositories of human remains, regardless of historic period or culture, deserve protection and respect.

That statement served as the foundation of a statewide task force formed to recommend and update the patchwork of Ohio laws and regulations governing the oversight and maintenance of the state’s 14,000-plus cemeteries and burial sites.

The value, respect and reverence that a civilized society owes its deceased can never be overstated. In its final report released in the fall of 2014, the Ohio Cemetery Law Task Force recognized as much: “Cemeteries are a business, a glimpse into our collective past, an historical record, documentation of past cultures, a place to remember our loved ones and the final resting place of our ancestors and a place to honor our fallen heroes.”

As such, the dozens of abandoned, decaying and dilapidated final resting sites scattered across Ohio represent insulting and embarrassing stains on the widely held belief that the dead and their historic legacy deserve honor.

One large example of such complete and utter neglect came to public light earlier this week when The Vindicator reported on a large abandoned graveyard on the city’s North Side adjacent to the stately Tod Homestead Cemetery.

According to available records, more than 1,800 individuals were buried on that 2-acre parcel between 1911 and 1933. A century later, chunks of pavement and overgrown plants make up the remnants of a road that leads back to the area of divots in the land at the southern outskirts of Tod cemetery. Divots are indentations in the earth from weak coffins caving in from decay.

Allowing that once hallowed ground for thousands of Youngstown area families to rot away into oblivion is shameful and unacceptable.

As Rocky Falleti, president of the Archaeological Society of Ohio Mahoning Valley chapter, put it: “Those are ancestors of people living in Youngstown, right now, that have no idea where their grandmothers are buried.”

SHROUDED IN MYSTERY

How the North Side graveyard – known as a potter’s field where many of the city’s poorest residents were laid to rest – fell into such disrepair remains largely shrouded in mystery.

In the cemetery board’s meeting minutes of June 7, 1911, Volney Rogers, founder of Mill Creek Park and board president of Tod Homestead Cemetery at the time, sold Youngstown Township trustees the property for burials. For 22 years, burials routinely took place there, but formal record keeping of the graveyard ceased after the last recorded interment in March 1933.

The dearth of records makes understanding how the cemetery fell into abandonment and decay all the more difficult. Larry Sommers, today’s superintendent of Tod Homestead, said, “In what we do here, record keeping is so important. There are no grave markers – nothing. And because it was a potter’s field, headstones weren’t allowed.”

Despite the mysteries, however, the new public spotlight on the aging burial ground should spark discussion and action. We suggest a meeting of the minds among city leaders, Tod Homestead Cemetery board members, Mahoning Valley Historical Society leaders and others to brainstorm possibilities for its future.

Their purpose should not be to point fingers of blame but to pinpoint viable strategies to restore a semblance of dignity to the graveyard and to the lives and legacies of those buried there. A variety of options could be considered ranging from full-scale cleanup to fencing in the property with signage that identifies the terrain as the final resting place for hundreds of one-time city residents.

Costs clearly will be a factor in the scope of any reclamation effort. Options that might be considered include using day laborers from the county jail to organizing community fundraising campaigns to finance more extensive rehabilitation.

Clearly, however, the property must not be allowed to remain in a state of perpetual ruin. Yes, the graveyard is filled with the remains of some of the city’s poorest and most vulnerable residents. But no, that does not mean that their lives and legacies do not matter. They, too, deserve final and enduring resting place amid respect, reverence and dignity.