The maintenance staff at Lawrence's Bellevue Cemetery has taken a lot of criticism over the years for the poor condition of the historic burying ground.
The task of maintaining the cemetery has only gotten more difficult in recent years with cuts to the department's budget. Once, five workers were responsible for the 110-acre cemetery. When Superintendent Thomas Ferris Jr. was hired in October 2008, he had just three workers. Now, with the latest round of budget cuts in the city, he is down to two.
Despite the loss of employees, conditions across much of the cemetery have improved. That's thanks to the help of inmates at the Correctional Alternative Center, Scouts and whatever other volunteers Ferris can find.
Now, the cemetery needs the help of the families whose loved ones are buried there.
While we understand that grief is very personal, it's clear that some families have gone overboard — way overboard — in decorating their loved ones' graves.
Early this spring, Ferris told reporter Jill Harmacinski, a grieving woman arrived at Bellevue Cemetery with wooden forms and concrete. She poured her own monument for her loved one.
Other graves in the cemetery are surrounded with candles, bouquets of plastic flowers, stuffed animals, bushes, makeshift memorials. Some mourners have set paving stones and fences around the graves.
Few of these items are allowed in the cemetery. They make it difficult, if not impossible, to maintain the area.
Some of the makeshift memorials extend 2 to 3 feet beyond headstones and are fenced in, Ferris said, making the rows between the graves impassable for lawn mowers. Lit candles at the gravesites are a danger during dry weather. Plastic flowers spray shrapnel if they are hit by a lawn mower or weed wacker.
"I understand and I try to be sympathetic, but some of this stuff is really hard to get around," Ferris told Harmacinski.
In the past, cemetery workers twice a year would remove many of these items from the graves — prompting, we suspect, many of the calls we receive at the newspaper that grave items have been "stolen."
But now, Bellevue no longer has the staff needed to clean off the gravesites. Relatives are being asked to clear the graves themselves. They have until Sept. 30 to clear the "debris, makeshift memorials and obstructions around the headstones and grave lots before winter sets in," Ferris said.
Bellevue Cemetery is an asset for Lawrence. It is included on the National Register of Historic Places and gets many visits from history buffs. Most are interested in the grave of Cpl. Sumner Needham, a Union soldier who was killed in the Baltimore Riot of April, 1861. Although Needham was killed by civilians, some historians consider him the first Union casualty of the Civil War.
It is important to keep this historic cemetery clean and well maintained out of respect for the dead and their families. Budget cuts have put a severe strain on what cemetery staff can do. It's up to relatives of those buried in Bellevue to keep their graves free of excessive decorations that make it difficult or dangerous for cemetery workers to do their jobs.
