"Man Works to Restore One of the Oldest Cemeteries in Ohio" -- Spotlighting Tim Foor and his work at the Pagetown Cemetery in Morrow County, Ohio

"Man Works to Restore One of the Oldest Cemeteries in Ohio" 

by Bryant Somerville of WBNS 10TV News in Columbus, Ohio.

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Sharing an Excerpt:

"BENNINGTON TOWNSHIP, Ohio"

"The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living."

"That was once said by Roman philosopher Marcus Tullius Cicero.

Two-thousand years later, just off State Route 26 in Morrow County, those same words ring true.

Tim Foor says it needed to be done.

"It's been in rough shape for quite some time," he said.

Records kept the Pagetown Cemetery in Bennington Township up-to-date until 1948. By that time, Foor says grazing cattle had knocked over and destroyed many of the headstones."

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There is a well done video for this story that is inspiring so many who are viewing it to follow in the footsteps of Mr. Tim Foor and learn to properly clean, repair, and re-set old gravestones.  

As has been written in the past in this blog, the key word is always "properly"!!  

First, we need to feel compelled to join the ever growing number of people who want to become proactive with saving a cemetery!  It happens one gravemarker at a time and one row at a time.  It can happen through donations or hands-on work, but we know it is happening!  Ohio is destined to become a leader in restoring its cemeteries and and returning respect for all of those who now rest in peace in them. "

Pagetown Cemetery on Find A Grave

Poor maintenance practices plague Lorain's Elmwood Cemetery - Lorain, Ohio

Below is the related Lorain "MorningJournal" News Story;

"Lorain cemetery grounds-keeping raises concerns"

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These photographs below were taken on August 12, 2018 at Elmwood Cemetery in Lorain.  They illustrate maintenance practices that are causing clumps of thick dead grass to stick to the stones and dry in the hot sun; making it difficult to remove the clumps from the stone.  

I think most folks would consider this an unsightly mess and disrespectful to the deceased.  This situation means that family members must clean off the dried up clumps from their family's markers and monuments.  What about the markers and monuments where there is no family to handle this situation?  Will the cemetery groundskeepers come back to remove the thick clumps from the surface?  We just don't know at this point.  

Sadly, this is the worst Elmwood Cemetery has looked since I have been visiting it for over 20 years.  

 

 

 

 

This last photo above illustrates where part of the problem lies.

Taking too long between trimmings.  
Allowing gravemarkers

to become too overgrown means taking too aggressive

of an approach to remove the grass/weeds around them. 
As we can easily see here; it has been awhile since there has been any trimming around this flat marker.  
Thankfully, there is no dead grass/weeds covering it; but live grass/weeds are covering over it to the point eventually it may no longer be seen.