Cemetery issue posing grave dilemma

Cemetery monuments such as headstones are designed to honor the deceased for many years to come by listing names, birth/death dates and maybe a special tribute — but what if they can’t be read due to age?

This represents a grave dilemma brought to the attention of Mount Airy officials regarding the city-owned Oakdale Cemetery on North Main Street.

While a Pilot Mountain man is advocating a major cleanup operation to make older makers legible, city officials are reluctant to do so because individual grave sites constitute private property and they don’t want to risk damaging the stones.

The 22-acre cemetery has been serving as the final resting place for local residents since the late 1800s, containing more than 6,000 burial sites with in excess of 1,200 reported as presently available. Two men who served in Congress are listed among those interred there.

While there is no problem deciphering headstones from the modern era, it’s a different story with those in an older section of Oakdale Cemetery where many of the town’s founders are buried.

“There are many gravestones you cannot read anymore,” Jim Roberts said during the last meeting of the Mount Airy Board of Commissioners in May.

“There’s a lot of work to be done there,” added Roberts, who was speaking during an open-forum portion of the meeting when the public can address any city government topic.

Roberts mentioned that his parents, grandparents and other family members are interred at Oakdale.

“And I have been taking care of their plots over the years,” he mentioned during the forum, including having gravestones pressure-washed at periodic intervals.

Roberts suggested a similar cleaning for other stones at Oakdale Cemetery, pointing to “the historical aspect” involved in addition to paying adequate homage to persons who have died.

Grave markers frequently are referenced by genealogists due to the information they contain — reliable details that literally are set in stone.

City officials wary

Although they seem to appreciate where Roberts was coming from with his graveyard cleaning request, council members stopped short of advocating it because of liability concerns.

City Manager Darren Lewis advised that while Oakdale Cemetery is managed by Mount Airy Parks and Recreation — a division of municipal government which sells the plots — there is a clear line drawn where its responsibility is concerned.

Staff members maintain cemetery care including the grounds, roads and sidewalks, with mowing contracted out to the private sector.

Meanwhile, all markers added such as headstones and footstones are the property of the families or heirs involved.

Since the stones have been recognized as private property, “we have not maintained those,” the city manager explained, which would require owners’ express permission.

There is a fear that pressure washing gravestones could degrade lettering on older ones more than exists already, according to Lewis.

Mayor Jon Cawley advised that Roberts had asked him about the possibility of raising funds for cleaning stones.

However, since such an operation poses a liability risk to the municipality, he and Lewis agreed, the prevailing sentiment is the city government shouldn’t maintain what it does not own.

Roberts had said during his public-forum comments that relying on family members or heirs for stone maintenance might sound good, yet this sometimes leads to graves being “abandoned” due to those individuals moving away and additional factors.

Others commenting on the issue included Commissioner Deborah Cochran, who favored maintaining the existing policy.

“It’s a very sensitive topic and we definitely don’t want to disturb anything,” Cochran said.