Complaints about cemetery maintenance growing
Oaknoll is the primary focus of the trouble reports.
Five months after first getting complaints about poor maintenance of cemetery plots, primarily at Oaknoll Memorial Gardens in West Rome, another round of complaints have been reported.
Oaknoll Memorial Gardens, 2549 Shorter Ave., is owned by StoneMor Partners L.P., based in Trevose, Pennsylvania. The company also owns Sunset Hill Memorial Gardens, off Church Street in North Rome and Floyd Memory Gardens off U.S. 411 East in Rome, along with more than 300 cemeteries across the country.
Complaints have focused on a leaking mausoleum at Oaknoll, sunken and ungrassed gravesites and broken grave markers.
“They are not doing perpetual care like it calls for in those contracts,” said Barbara Penson, Floyd County’s Clerk of Superior Court, whose husband and two sisters are buried at Oaknoll.
Penson said when she visited her sister Jean Hardin’s grave one day this summer the earth had sunk at least 8 inches. Hardin died in May of this year.
“Until StoneMor bought this cemetery we didn’t have these kinds of problems,” Penson said.
StoneMor has owned the cemeteries since October 2005.
Friday, David Shane, of Shane Strategies, a spokesman for StoneMor, said: “Our mission is to serve every family with compassion and dignity. We are launching an internal investigation into the complaints at Oaknoll Memorial Gardens and will take action to rectify the situation as soon as our investigation is complete.”
The Rome News-Tribune initially contacted StoneMor Director of Investor Relations John McNamara by email on May 22 to get some reaction and comment about the complaints. McNamara responded by email the same day and said: “We take seriously the maintenance of our properties, and work to address complaints as quickly as possible. My understanding is that we are currently in regular contact with the group you mentioned, and are working to resolve outstanding issues.”
Photos were sent to McNamara and he said he felt like many of the issues represented in the photo had already been corrected.
In the last two weeks, additional complaints have been received by the Rome News-Tribune. Donald Sorrells, whose mother was buried Aug. 13, complained about a sunken grave.
“I have been patient with the cemetery on this matter by letting them fill out a work order to take care of it,” Sorrells said via email. “About 3 weeks have passed and the gravesite still looks like this!”
The photograph of what the gravesite looked like
accompanies this story on page A1.
The cemetery does have fill dirt and a tractor on site to perform such work.
Sorrells finally took matters to resolve the issue in his own hands, going to Oaknoll on Sunday morning, Oct. 1, when he filled in the grave himself, spread seed and covered it with hay.
Dale Byars, whose son Stevie Byars died and was buried at Oaknoll in April of 2016, said the grass still has not taken at his son’s gravesite more than 17 months later.
“We started the Facebook page due to StoneMors failure to keep the cemetery up as prescribed in the burial plot deeds.” Penson said. A group of concerned family members have opened the Facebook page “oaknoll memorial floyd memory & sunset hill memorial gardens cemeteries” to voice their complaints.