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No one steps forward to repair Oak Hill Cemetery mausoleum in Towanda |
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Written by DeadGirl
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Wednesday, 21 July 2004 |
By: James Loewenstein
July 21, 2004
TOWANDA - A couple of relatives say they are upset with the condition of an 80-vault mausoleum at the Oak Hill Cemetery in Towanda.
"The back wall is leaking and there is water on the floor creeping along the inside walls," according to an e-mail sent recently to The Daily Review. "The back window is cracked and there is moss growing from the ceiling!"
The mausoleum, which is 85-percent full, has individuals interred there from a number of unrelated families, according to the cemetery's board of directors.
Jean Miller, secretary/treasurer of the non-profit Oak Hill Cemetery, said the problem with the mausoleum is that it was privately built on the cemetery grounds, which should have never been allowed to happen.
Ownership of the mausoleum, which was built in 1955, was somehow transferred many years ago to the Oak Hill Cemetery Association, Miller said. The vaults are still privately owned.
"We inherited the mausoleum," said Harvey Chernosky, a member of the cemetery's board of directors.
"We don't have the funds" to pay for the needed repairs to the structure, he said.
To get funds to repair the mausoleum, the cemetery association sent out a letter a few years ago soliciting funds from people whose relatives are interred in the mausoleum, Miller said.
But so far, they have only donated a total of $100, Miller said.
Miller said the cemetery association has only a modest amount of funds to maintain the cemetery as a whole. The cemetery's board of directors therefore believes that general funds should not be used to repair the mausoleum.
"They (the families of people interred in the mausoleum) should pay their fair share," Miller said. "They don't contribute anything."
In the past, the cemetery association has paid for repairs to the mausoleum, such as patching the leaking roof and cleaning debris off of it, Miller said.
In 1992 alone, the cemetery spent several thousand dollars repairing the roof and door to the mausoleum, according to Miller and Chernosky.
The mausoleum has a flat roof, which makes it more susceptible to leaks, Miller said.
Several cemetery board members have also periodically had to use mops and Clorox to clean the floor of the mausoleum, she added.
"We'd like to have a rubber roof put on the mausoleum" to stop the leaks, Miller said.
On Monday, water covered about 20 percent of the mausoleum's floor.
Miller said the water does not get into the burial vaults in the mausoleum.
"They are all sealed vaults," she said. "The water doesn't get into the vaults."
Chernosky said that in general, the cemetery is in good shape.
"I think we keep it up reasonably," he said. "Most people would say it is a very nice cemetery."
http://www.thedailyreview.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=12413708&BRD=2276&PAG=461&dept_id=465049&rfi=6 |
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