Phenix City families angered over removal of items from loved ones’ graves

Some Chattahoochee Valley residents are upset at Lakeview Memory Gardens cemetery in Phenix City over flowers and tributes being removed from loved ones’ graves.

One of those people, Laken Claridy Holt, took to Facebook armed with her smart phone to tell the world know what she thought of groundskeepers at the cemetery removing items from her mother’s grave, where she was buried in December. On a self-shot video, she shows a large pile of discarded flowers and other mementos and describes how finding her mother’s bare grave affected her.

“They are clearing out, stealing everything off of people’s graves,” Holt says on her video, pointing to a pile of flowers and mementos behind a fence at the rear of the cemetery property. “Look at this. This is from my mom’s (grave). We had put a little sign with her name on it because her headstone is not there yet. So we put something out there so that she would at least have her name there, so that when people come to visit her and pay their respects, they knew that it was my mom.”

She reaches into the pile and pulls out a wood-like plaque emblazoned with the Auburn University insignias above the name “Bonnie Claridy.”

“They took it, and they just threw it away,” Holt said. “They threw it away in the trash. In the trash, guys.”

Penny Harrison also had flowers removed from graves of several family members, and isn’t happy about it.

“They told me they were doing some spring cleaning,” Harrison said. “They had no right to do that.”

Lakeview has regulations concerning flowers and other tributes placed on or around gravesites. A pamphlet in their office on U.S. 280, states that wilted flowers will be removed and that extra flowers besides those in vases or urns are allowed for special days such as Mother’s and Father’s Days, Memorial Day, Easter and Christmas, but that they can only be there for a week before and a week after the holiday.

“Other than on those days flowers are only placed in vases or urns,” the pamphlet states. “All others are subject to removal by cemetery personnel. Floral arrangements that become a maintenance problem are subject to removal without notice.”

Management at Lakeview referred questions about the issue to Stonemor Partners in Trevose, Penn., which owns Lakeview and 316 other cemeteries, according to its website.A phone message seeking a statement on the issue was not immediately returned.Holt, who buried her mother in December, said seeing the thing placed on her grave removed and discarded only adds to her burden.

“It hurts my heart. It just hurts,” Holt said. “I’m just now getting used to trying to fathom the thought that my Mom is no longer here anymore.

“This is something that just breaks my heart.”

This story was originally published February 27, 2017 at 12:56 PM with the headline "Phenix City families angered over removal of items from loved ones’ graves."