Cemetery cleanup upsetting to family

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July 3, 2008

By From staff reports

Linda Plourde and July Livingstone often visit their father's final resting place at Linwood Cemetery in Haverhill. What they saw when they visited during the last week in June brought them to tears.

The basket of flowers they left on dad Peter Brooks' grave was gone. So was a photograph of their parents that they had propped on the headstone.

"It's very cruel," said Plourde.

That's when they noticed the pile of flowers, flags and mementos near the Linwood Cemetery garage. The pile included framed photos, all sorts of floral arrangements, and items of remembrance left at gravesites all around the cemetery.

All were removed by cemetery workers, Plourde said.

The cemetery advertised last month in the newspaper that flowers would be picked up from gravesites, Plourde said. But that happens every year.

"I can understand that," she said.

But nothing like this had happened before, according to Plourde.

Linwood Cemetery Superintendent Michael Kenney did not respond to repeated requests for comment, but a secretary at the cemetery provided a copy of the rules under which the cemetery operates.

The rules state that the superintendent is "directed to remove ... any tree, shrub, plant, vine, pots or baskets and any other article or structure when it becomes detrimental to the lot or its surroundings or causes an added expense to the care of the lot for which no provision has been made.

"No flag, pennant or similar decoration, except the flag of the United States, shall be displayed on any lot or grave, and these shall remain on the graves a few days before and after Memorial Day."

Plourde said she and her sister would have liked to replace the mementos at her father's grave, but are afraid they would be removed again.

"They took people's personal stuff. They threw away people's money and their memories," said Plourde. She was especially saddened to see a framed photograph of a service member in uniform sitting upon the pile of rubble, she said. It was not anyone she knew, but she understood the sentiment behind it.

Her father was a World War II veteran who died last year at 83.

A few boxes of items taken from graves were kept inside the cemetery office, Plourde said, but most were thrown in a heap near the main garage, among them the photo that once decorated her father's grave. She and her sister were able to retrieve it.

Linwood Cemetery is off John Ward Avenue, and is bordered by Mill, Water and Boardman streets.