Cemetery on HOA property

The community I manage was built on what used to be a family farm. When development first began, some broken headstones were found on the land. Further investigation found a layout of small square stones, which were believed to be grave markers. A fence was constructed around them, and the area declared a cemetery. I can't find anyone who remembers how the boundaries of this cemetery were decided.

The cemetery was supposed to be maintained by a trust, but they have virtually no money, so for years the HOA has paid for its maintenance as a matter of respect for what it is. Landscaping, removal of dead trees, replacing a huge section of fence that was damaged when a tree fell over, treating poison ivy...Overall, about $12,000 has been put into maintaining this area over the last five years.

So many residents ask about the cemetery that the board and I talked about putting up a little plaque that explained its history, and who was buried there. I turned to the local historical society and found out that they don't know too much about the names on the two graves, other than that they appear on censuses and the last names are of families that were known to be early settlers. that They also said they don't really know if the area is actually a cemetery. It's not recorded anywhere and apparently it's not uncommon to have grave markers just ripped up and tossed aside during construction Meaning the actual bodies might be buried somewhere else (like under someone's house!), and the cemetery built around the place the headstones were discarded. And the small square stones may just be rocks or other construction debris. Or they may mark pets.

It occurred to me that we could rent a ground penetrating radar system for a few bucks and find out. If there are bodies, the HOA can continue to maintain the cemetery. If not, it could be restored as a natural area, or maybe turned into a memorial garden out of respect for what everyone thought it was for so long.

I haven't brought it up to the board yet because I thought maybe it would seem morbid. But the only reason the HOA is paying for maintenance of an area they cannot use is because they think it's a cemetery. If it is - fine continue to pay for it. If it's not, maybe it could be absorbed by the surrounded natural area, or turned into something that the people paying for its care can actually use.

Just wondering how you would feel as board members if I suggested this.

I will play the callous director who only spends money when the governing documents say to.

-- Is ground penetrating radar effective at finding very old corpses? If the GPR finds nothing, I am betting this is not proof positive that the bodies (and any wrappings) are (were) not there.

-- The GPR equipment is pretty expensive to purchase. Is rental and hiring of a qualified technician all that cheap?

-- Regardless, if the governing docs do not say anything about maintaining a cemetery, the Board should not expend money towards this.

-- Ashes to ashes and dust to dust. If enough people are disturbed by ignoring a few possible graves, spend $200 or less on a plaque. Justify it as "maintenance." That's it.

Apparently it is effective - I found some cemetery mapping companies that have found Civil War era graves and the markers on these show 1880s.

I'm not sure on the cost; some preliminary googling shows the equipment isn't expensive to rent on an hourly basis, but I need to do more research.

The HOA owns the land, but there was a separate agreement with a memorial trust that they would maintain it. They can't afford to. Nobody wants to let it just fall into disrepair because it's (maybe?) a cemetery. The area where it's located is in one of our "natural" areas. If we didn't mow and trim, it would eventually be reclaimed by native plants.

Reading an article on creating a local, man made hydro electric lake/dam by flooding a large area that consisted of towns, cemeteries, etc. What they did for the cemeteries is they notified any living relative that they could remove their family remains within one year but then they were going to flood over the cemeteries. They did not get many responses and the flooding began.

I can tell ya what didn't happen as constructions crews building new homes on the west side of the Las Vegas Valley found human remains. No Declarant wants their project held up for investigations.

That's wonderful news Barbara, How old are the interments? Any chance the graves can be identified with online genealogy records?

LetA and John - the dates on the two graves with headstones are from the 1850s. The others are probably not any later than that, because a family bought the land in the 1860s and they are all buried in the city cemetery.

One of the committee volunteers does land research for oil and gas leases so she has access to all sorts of historical records. The committee already hooked up with the local historical society to find out more about the graves too - there might be descendants of that family still in town!

Weird thing though...the day after we did the GPR, a GIANT oak tree fell over and took out a huge part of the fence. Uprooted. No storms, no wind, it just keeled over. We are not sure if the spirits are unhappy at being disturbed, or overheard us saying we wanted to clear some trees and put in grass, and were trying to help out!