Neighborhood Nuisance: Overgrown headstones at Calvary Cemetery

TOLEDO, Ohio (WTVG) – Richard Dudley was taking a walk in Calvary Cemetery to visit a loved one when he found himself disappointed to find so many graves overgrown on Monday.

The site was so overgrown he couldn’t even find who he was looking for.

" The majority of the time I spent there was just a row after row after row. I was unable to locate them, just probably because it’s under the grass somewhere,” said Dudley.

Dudley added that only the larger memorials were well maintained.

“The big memorials Graves we’re looking great, but a lot of the flat stones were just completely overgrown. You have no idea there was a grave site even there.”

In addition, Dudley said he was shocked to see some WWII veterans’ graves in such bad condition.

“I could probably find and locate the headstone of my loved one, and clean it up to it myself. I mean from what I saw in just those couple of sections there are properly over 100 headstones that are under grass, and for our heroes to be not memorialized especially on the Fourth of July it was really heartbreaking,” said Dudley.

13abc reached out to the Catholic Diocese of Toledo, which owns the cemetery. The Diocese said the cemetery is working on expanding communication with families so that headstones don’t end up in that condition.

A representative said crews are dedicated to preserving the site and will clean up whatever is necessary.

The cemetery is also organizing volunteer groups to monitor grave conditions, and maintain them.

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