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Thanatology and Taphophile Issues, Cemetery,
Funeral Industry and Death Related News.
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Grave Concerns: Grand View's section L: the land of the lost |
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Written by DeadGirl
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Sunday, 10 December 2006 |
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Contributed by: Lisa Burks on 11/19/2006
Glendale, CA
In a both a civil suit filed by 160 plaintiffs on Nov. 6 and the state of California's original Intermim Suspension Order issued a year ago, Grand View Memorial Park management has been accused, among many other things, of routinely removing markers from graves and disgarding them.
I ran into what appears to be an example of this problem today during the Sunday limited visitation when I tried to find the grave of retired school teacher Grace Lealtad who was buried at Grand View in 1998.
Diane Green, a member of FindAGrave.com had requested a photo for a memorial page that she created for Grace and I volunteered to do the job. Earlier, she had obtained information placing Grace in Section L, Grave 46, Tier 1 and I was able to confirm this location with records on hand at the cemetery this afternoon.
On my first attempt to locate Grace, I did a walk through of the section which runs horizontal to the West Mausoleum on the Sonora Street side of the cemetery. In particular, I double checked the southern area of the section where many of the marker death dates were from the late 1990s.
No Grace.
I went back to the information table where the always helpful Koko Panossian from city of Glendale Parks and Recreation pulled out the cemetery map which was provided last summer by Grand View management.
According to that map, which I can say from my own experience with it, has proven to be inaccurate, Grave 46 was located further north, much further than I was looking.
Koko pointed out that he had spent quite a bit of time today with another family looking for relatives known to be buried years ago in that very same area. A family who found now found no markers for their loved ones where they used to be.
My heart sank as I drove up to the area noted on the map. Not only was there no marker for Grace, there were no markers at all, except for a few relatively new memorials. Just a lot of dead, brown grass. More than half of what was supposed to be Section L appeared vacant.
A family was visiting one of those new memorials a few feet away from where Grace should have been so I asked them if this was Section L. They weren't sure but said that to their recollection there had been no markers in the area that I was pointing to since they'd been coming to Grand View.
So, where's Grace and her marker? Did she even have a marker to begin with? It's not unheard of people being buried in unmarked graves. But Section L is just too bare for me to think it's all a coincidence. Is this what was known as Potter's Field? If so, why would Grace have been buried there?
The general concensus among funeral industry professionals that have spoken with me is that this problem of "who is buried where?" is one of the biggest stumbling blocks to making Grand View an appealing property purchase and reopen. Who would buy a cemetery business when it's not even known what plots are occupied and by whom.
For now, sadly, Grace Lealtad has been added to my growing Grand View unsolved mystery file. Stay tuned for further developments as legal battles continue in the courts. The civil suit filed Nov. 6 seeks class action status a trial by jury in 2007.
Happily, there are markers in the southern area of Section L. Two that caught my attention today because they featured portraits belong to Miguel Angel Ulloa and Mr. and Mrs. Rolland Fyke. They are representative of all the Faces of Grand View below headstones (or not); the cumulative permanent residents there who deserve better than the treatment they've received.
http://valleynews.com/Glendale/Blogs/News-Politics/News/Current-Affairs/Blog~152434.aspx
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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
Quote Repository
“Some can gaze and not be sick, But I could never learn the trick. There's this to say for blood and breath, They give a man a taste for death.” A.E. Housman
Shirtless and Sculpted
The Men of Mortuaries 2008 Calendar is now available! All sale proceeds benefit KAMMCARES, a breast cancer foundation.
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