Taphophilia.(dot) Com - Protesters Claim Funeral Home Mistreatment

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Protesters Claim Funeral Home Mistreatment

Written by DeadGirl
Thursday, 05 May 2005
BY AMBER HUNT MARTIN FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER The plywood signs of protesters boasted some unusual -- and unsettling -- allegations Sunday outside of AH Peters Funeral Home in Grosse Pointe Woods: "Mothers body left dangling from crain," read one slightly misspelled sign. "AH Peters took the $$$$ and ran," said another. "Did AH Peters lose your loved one's body?" That last one's a bit of a stretch. Dean Mouat, 58, of Detroit isn't accusing the funeral home of losing his 91-year-old mother's body after she died of natural causes in 2003. But Mouat does say his mother, Phyllis, was buried in the wrong plot on the day of her funeral. And he claims that when workers at Gethsemane Cemetery in Detroit realized the mistake shortly afterward, they took his mother's casket out of the grave and left her to dangle in the wind on a backhoe for 40 minutes as family members watched -- a charge the funeral home denies. According to Mouat, no AH Peters employee was present at the time, and when his mother was reburied, she again was put into the wrong grave -- where she remains. "It's the right tombstone, but she's in the wrong grave," Mouat said Sunday as he and a group of about a dozen sign carriers packed up to go home after more than three hours of protesting. Officials with Gethsemane did not return phone calls Sunday or Monday. On Tuesday, a receptionist in the cemetery's front office told a reporter the director was not available. The demonstration, in front of the funeral home at Mack and Vernier, was the group's third in recent weeks. The display piqued motorists' curiosity. Drivers slowed to read the signs. One couple backed up traffic to ask what happened. "They buried his mother in the wrong grave," said protester Timothy Barkovic, 52, a St. Clair Shores lawyer. One protester, Gary Golding, 46, of Clinton Township said he was there to help his friend draw attention to the situation. They could've filed a lawsuit, he said, but picketing is much more public. AH Peters manager David Kesner said Mouat's accusations are both unfounded and unfair. He acknowledged the initial mistake in grave plots, but he said the rest of the story is exaggerated. The family could not have seen the casket dangling from a backhoe after she was buried initially, he said, because Mrs. Mouat's casket was already in the ground and wasn't removed until the next day. Kesner said the funeral home hadn't heard a complaint from Mouat until he began picketing in recent weeks. In fact, Kesner said, the family even sent the funeral home a thank-you note. "We feel the statements they're making are ... tainted," he said. "They're less than truthful." Kesner said most of the complaints Mouat leveled should be directed at the cemetery, not the funeral home, and invited the protesters to file a suit. "They're exerting their constitutional right to protest," he said, "but they've never been in contact with us. They've never brought a lawsuit. That's what's so baffling. "We don't know what they want." Source: Detroit Free Press

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Taphophilia?

taphophilia (taf′ō-fil′ē-ă)

ORIGIN:
From the Greek words taphos, meaning "tomb" or "sepulcher" and philia, meaning "attraction or affinity to something, in particular the love or obsession with something"

DEFINITION: 1. An excessive interest in graves and cemeteries. 2. A love or fondness for funerals, graves, and cemeteries. 3. In psychiatry, a morbid attraction to graves and cemeteries