FALL RIVER: A father, whose daughter is buried in the St. Thomas at Fall River Anglican Church cemetery, is dissatisfied with the conditions of the ground around hers and other loved ones gravesites.
Alan Crewe wants the church to do a better job of keeping the areas around the gravesite clear of grass, weeds and brush.
The ground at the cemetery is serenaded with leaves that aren’t raked making the graveyard look more of a mess. However, as Crewe pointed out, the exact mess lays under the snow which has fallen obscuring the leaves.
“They haven’t raked the leaves yet this year,” Crewe said. “We had a great fall to rake leaves. It’s just a mess. On the side of the graveyard, there are a couple of logs that are from Hurricane Juan five years ago.”
He explained he’s seen a young gentleman mowing the grass, but he’s pulling the lawn mower behind him, leaving an unsightly sight behind.
“When he’s finished it looks like stripes,” he added. “It’s deplorable. There’s no maintenance to the yard at all.”
During this past summer, Crewe took three hours out of a Saturday to go to the cemetery, which is close to his family’s home, to make the graveyard look accommodating.
“I weed-wacked around every single headstone,” he said. “I shouldn’t have to do that. I don’t have a problem doing it, but obviously they’re paying somebody to cut the grass and that person they’re paying isn’t doing the job right.”
He noted there were alders beside one of the headstones close to where his daughter’s grave that would have eventually knocked over the headstone. Again, he decided to take action.
“I went down one night and I cut the alders out,” he said. “Some of those headstones have been there since the 1800s.”
In front of where Crewe’s daughter is buried is another headstone and this one has grass and weeds visible.
Some headstones which had been knocked over by youth a couple years back were recently repaired by a man who lives nearby, on his own time, Crewe explained.
“He took time out of his day and fixed a lot of these headstones on his own bill,” “He did a great job, but there are still some up there that aren’t fixed. I think the problem is there’s no living relatives of the people buried there to maintain the stones and the yard around it.”
The main question Crewe has is to find out why the church doesn’t appear to be maintaining the cemetery and if it’s who looks after the yard that is responsible for its current condition.
He is frustrated by the lack of response he’s had from the church when he or his wife have inquired or even offered to help them with the maintenance.
“It’s very upsetting,” he said. “Until you have somebody buried there, you don’t really notice it. To look up there in the summer time where it looks so bad, the lawn is not cut, the leaves aren’t raked, when they do cut the lawn, the grass isn’t raked, there’s just mounds of grass everywhere. It’s very disturbing to me how people can go and not maintain a cemetery. Obviously, if they’re paying someone to cut the grass, they’ve got the wrong people.”
Crewe is hopeful the church might be able to take the initiative and arrange a day, once a month, where community volunteers can gather to do work at the cemetery
“My wife phoned the Anglican office a couple years back to offer our help for free and she was told they had it under control,” he added. “They neglected to take my time. In the summer, my grass is impeccable and I expect the same where my daughter is buried.”
No one from the church returned messages left for comment on the issue.
phealey@enfieldweeklypress.com