Mayr

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Richmond Cemetery Disgrace

On 26 June 2014 I stopped for a visit at the Richmond, Utah, City Cemetery. I have a number of family buried there. It had been several years since I had been to the cemetery. I stopped by the Jonas family graves and was shocked by what I saw. Open scarring and damage to the tombstones. This is a follow up to a previous post.

Tombstone of Irwin J Jonas, notice the top side has been completely chipped away, along with the obvious metal dragging across the surface.

I reached out to Richmond City Hall to find out who was in charge of the Cemetery. I was given the name and phone number of Jeff Young and Cheryl Peck. I called and left a message for both. I returned to the Cemetery to take some additional pictures.

Tombstone of my grandfather, Norwood Jonas. Notice how the top corners are both completely chipped away.
Backside of tombstone for Joseph and Lillian Jonas. Notice the apparent dragging of the mower deck along the back of the stone.

Over the next few weeks, I called and left messages for Jeff Young and Cheryl Peck. I indicated who I was and why I was calling. I never received a call back from either.

Tombstone of Herbert & Martha Coley. Notice the large chips and damage to the top of the stone.

A month or two later after no response from Mr. Young or Ms. Peck, I called back to Richmond City Hall. I was given the phone number for Marlowe Adkins. I had met Mr. Adkins when I worked for Inlande Environmental and Richmond City was doing some upgrades to their wastewater treatment facility. Mr. Adkins explained to me that the Cemetery had a Citizens Committee that was responsible for the Cemetery and Mr. Young was the one to talk to regarding the care of the Cemetery.

Tombstone of Ole Christiansen. Notice the large chip out of the top right, the corner worn off the bottom right, and the rounded damage on the top left.

I had not been to the cemetery for probably close to 8 years. As far as I can tell on the family tombstones all the damage occurred during that time.

I walked around the cemetery and snapped photos of the obvious damage on other grave markers.

  • Previous Mayor of Richmond Ross Plant’s tombstone didn’t fare any better.
  • This is obviously from repeated mowing and dragging the mower deck across the stone face.
  • Notice the large chip on the top right.
  • Both top corners completely chipped away.
  • Dragging of the metal along the back by the mower.
  • Large gash across the top chipping the stone and leaving the metal rust.
  • American Legion medallion completely broken from its rod.
  • The American Legion badges don’t even have the posts anymore.
  • This has been sitting there for a good while.
  • Looks like the city is kind enough to not throw away everyone’s hook!
  • Substantial chipping away on the corners of the stone.
  • Watch your step.
  • The entire stone has been pushed aside.

After not hearing from Mr. Young or Ms. Peck for several months, I reached out to an attorney regarding liability for the damages to these stones. Ultimately, the determination was made that proving the date of the damage was going to be hard and second Utah only has a small time frame in which to make notice of the injury. The king has again protected itself against liability. There would be no recourse against Richmond. Some of the FindaGrave photos uploaded in 2010 did have some of the damages showing, so we were obviously over the known injury time frame to make a claim.

Hopefully citizens and residents of Richmond would care how their Cemetery is being cared for, but I guess since it happened and no action was taken, I guess I might be wrong. Not my fight. But I can hope that shining a light on the issue might help.