My wife Amy & I drove from Delaware to Kosciusko County to the Pleasant
Grove Cemetery on Tuesday (7-27) The initial reports are
accurate -thereabouts 60 stones are involved.
Over 75 % are pushovers of very large family markers, but what broke my
heart were the most earliest markers which were basically just ripped in
two. There are a good bit of those - -One of a civil war sgt really struck
home with me.
There are a lot of heavy monuments that will need mechanized lifting skill
and then are those that even the most skilled among us will more than likely
in my opinion look and say "I can't do much about this one"
We took some pics--they will be back next week.
The cemetery is on a nice grassy knoll in the country outside of Warsaw
across from Pleasant Grove UMC and is well maintained, mowed, attended,
etc.. It is active it seems and has a more recent (active) area that didn't
appear to be disturbed. It is a pretty place.
It was a relief to me to see the majority of the damage were of the push
over variety, however the damage to smaller older stones that look
devastating really got to me. Even though this cemetery looked wonderful a
month ago--there were signs of advancing age on those of its earlier
population -maybe this incident can help not just the stones that got
damaged get repaired , but actually afford some of our group to give
consultation/help regarding the preservation of the cemetery as a whole
(especially the older part).
This was the first visit either of us had made to a cemetery which had been
vandalized. We weren't afforded the opportunity to speak with anyone about
the cemetery, but both agree with the reports that it had been vandalized.
There were no tire tracks evident and it seems that a lot were pushed over
in the same direction.
Larry & Amy Leahy
Muncie