"More Than $100,000 in Grant Funding Awarded to Ohio Cemeteries to Support Maintenance and Training"
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Every year since this program began the "repair and reset monuments" reason under "Notes" has been increasing.
I feel this fact demonstrates that there is a real need at Ohio's cemeteries for the repair and resetting of monuments and markers. We applaud this program being in place for Ohio's Registered / Active Cemeteries.
We must keep in mind, however, this grant is never awarded to the following categories of cemeteries in Ohio:
- Inactive/Unregistered cemeteries (no burials in past 25 years.
- For Profit Cemeteries
- Burial grounds deemed to be family cemeteries per Ohio Revised Code.
From what has been ascertained, the family cemeteries are Inactive and thus Not Registered.
In Ohio, Cemetery Registration is key in order to obtain at least some of the protections afforded to cemeteries in Ohio.
Many of Ohio's earliest cemeteries are long inactive - meaning no burials in the past 25 years.
Because they are Inactive and closed to new burials they do not qualify to be Registered. Thus, they are disqualified from the benefits afforded to their Active/Registered counterparts. Someone who has a complaint regarding one of these categories of cemeteries cannot bring their complaint to the Ohio Cemetery Dispute Resolution Commission to review and act upon such complaints. Sadly, these marginalized cemeteries deteriorate further and rely on volunteers and interested parties to advocate for them and work to keep them from falling into further decline.
Neither time, nor Ohio laws, preserve and protect the Buckeye State's earliest and most vulnerable cemeteries. Too much history has already been lost and the general public should be made aware of this sad situation before more decay and vanish.
