By Pauline Masson –
Some local families say Hometown Matters did not tell the whole story when we reported last week about the storm debris pushed into clumps and left along the Orr Street fence line and throughout the City Cemetery.
One callers said they were shocked and deeply alarmed at two deposits of raw earth atop two graves that they say have been there for at least two months. They said the storm debris could be described as an “Act of God,” but the exposed earth at the top of these graves is the work of human hands.
“Somebody did this,” they said.”Somebody left our burial ground like this.”
The unfinished graves are located between the William Street entry gate and the first tree on the left.
“Anyone going to visit family members buried nearby – on anyone driving on William Street – has to see this disrespect to those buried there,” they said.
“This is a sacred place where you want to come and visit your loved ones and then you have to see this disrespect to someone else’s loved ones,” they said. “This is unacceptable.”
According to ordinance, the city sexton has the responsibility to maintain the two cemeteries.
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Duties of the Sexton.
[Rev. Ords. 1910 §47; CC 1976 §8-8; Ord. No. 1472 §2, 11-18-1986; Ord. No. 2583 §1, 2-19-2008; Ord. No. 3425, 9-17-2024]
The Sexton shall oversee the maintenance of all City cemeteries so that they are maintained in a good condition and the grounds thereof mowed and cleared of undesirable vegetation. The Sexton shall also perform such other duties established herein or by contract.
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However, the city currently has no sexton, according to City Clerk Kim Barfield.
“There has been no one designated as sexton, city services are doing this (opening and closing graves),” Ms. Barfield said. “The city opened these two graves and it has been too wet to fix them.”
Nothing in city codes defines how graves are to be finished after burial, Ms. Barfield said. Former sexton Alan Bruns, who served as sexton for thirty years, routinely graded the fill dirt in new closed graves and laid sod on top so new graves had the same appearance as the surrounding graves.
Pacific’s two cemeteries – City Cemetery and Resurrection Hill Cemetery – are perpetual care cemeteries defined by city ordinance.
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Perpetual Care Established
Ord. No. 978 §1, 6-28-1967; CC 1976 §8-22; Ord. No. 2583 §1, 2-19-2008]
A fund is hereby established for the preservation, care, upkeep and adornment of all City cemeteries located in the City, which shall be known as the “Perpetual Care Cemetery Fund.”
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And it is not just the city that provides maintenance funds. Families of those interred in the two city cemeteries have also kicked in.
Cemetery Committee
The city formerly had a cemetery committee that raised funds for restoring and maintaining the two cemeteries.
In August 2000, Former Mayor Jill Pigg asked the late Alderman Barbara Bruns to recruit a committee and launch a fundraising campaign to upgrade the two aging city cemeteries.
Committee members Ms. Bruns, Neal Brennan, Roger Jarvis, Orton Lynch, Alan Bruns, Norma Koelling, Edna Myers, Jim Coleman, Randy Malin and Emma Jean Moore poured their energy into an aggressive campaign to restructure the image of the two cemeteries.
Mr. Jarvis and Mr. Lynch spent several months at work table set up in the city hall council chamber where they drew a maps of the city cemetery identifying the location of each grave by the name of the individual buried there. Two copies of the map were made. One was housed at city hall and the other was kept at the Pacific library.
Committee members researched contact information on relatives of those buried in the cemeteries and wrote letters asking for help, which raised more than $8,000.
The committee used the donated funds to repair the damaged fence, repair fallen and damaged grave stones, persuaded the city to erect street signs directing motorists to each cemetery and with the help of Sexton Bruns erected monument signs at the entrance identifying the cemeteries . And they created a tax-deductible cemetery trust fund.
Possibly the committee’s most memorable contribution was the two vintage band-stand style gazebos they built to provide covered seating shelter and welcome visitors in both cemeteries. The committee met its goal of returning the grace of former times to the two city cemeteries by turning the two burial grounds into show places.
The BOA disbanded the cemetery committee, saying the city could manage the cemeteries.
And so it goes – as singer Billy Joel might say.
As I remember word was the cemetery committee was disbanded because BOA did not like “outsiders” telling them how to “run things”.
As almost any observer can see, not much has changed for the cemetery or the rest of the City.