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Cemetery's care at issue

As the grass grew, so did relatives' complaints about the condition of their loved ones' final resting place.

By WAVENEY ANN MOORE
Published September 13, 2006

ST. PETERSBURG - Monday afternoon the steady drone of a riding mower filled the air at Royal Palm Cemetery North's 24 developed acres off Gandy Boulevard.

For Ron Hill, it was a welcome sound. Since Labor Day, he said, he had been calling cemetery employees to complain that the place where his father had chosen to be laid to rest was overgrown and unkempt.

"I usually try to get out here every two to three weeks. But it just started getting shabbier and shabbier," he said.

Hill hasn't been the only relative to be upset, acknowledged funeral director Ira L. Kirkwood Jr., who said the cemetery's mowing equipment had been broken.

"We just recently had some complaints. That's why we have guys working overtime," Kirkwood said as he sat in his office at the edge of the cemetery.

But Hill, standing earlier at his father's grave, was unsatisfied. He pointed to a broken wall in front of the Garden of Honor, where veterans like his father are buried. The wall had not been like that when his father, Elbert Hill, was buried two years ago, he said.

Plaques representing the armed services once hung on the wall, he added. "It was real nice when he was buried here," he said.

Owner Cliff Work, who purchased the cemetery in February 2002, said it is a former mausoleum and is being demolished.

Work, 43, who also owns Royal Palm Cemetery South at 58th Street and First Avenue S., said that during the rainy season, the water table is high at the Gandy cemetery, which makes it difficult to mow certain areas.

Monday afternoon, as dark clouds gathered overhead, Hill, 40, pointed to a broken cross and a vase from his father's grave, whose marker indicated that he had been a master sergeant in the U.S. Army in World War II and in Korea.

He also was awarded a Bronze Star. Born in 1919, the elder Hill died on March 7, 2004.

The funeral director said he remembers the elderly man well. He was friendly, he said.

"He would actually come in and talk to us" as he stopped in to make payments for his burial, Kirkwood said. He said he did not know Ron Hill was the man's son.

"I would have talked to him much nicer, but he started cursing us. I have never had any problem with that family. I always dealt with the daughter," he said.

"I can understand people being upset. We're not in the business to tee off family. We're in the business to help families."

Hill makes no apology for his behavior.

He said he threatened to tell his story to the media and believes that's the only reason the rain-drenched grass growing tall around the headstones is now being cut.

"I did curse them. I don't like the way they do the veterans and the people buried out there."

They would not like the graves of their relatives to be treated similarly, he said. "I bet they would be raising heck the way I was," he said. "I told them to get off their butts and fix the lawn mower."

Kirkwood said the mowing should be complete by the end of the week.

[Last modified September 13, 2006, 06:24:50]