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Blog Entry 58 of 80 Grave Concerns: Inside Grand View Memorial Park

News you can use regarding Grand View Memorial Park, Glendale, CA's oldest cemetery, which has been closed for regular business since June 13, 2006, due to legal and financial problems. Lisa Burks also runs the website GrandViewMemorialPark.info.

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Grand View's gates locked indefintely, again

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Contributed by: Lisa Burks on 6/18/2007

The gates of Grand View Memorial Park were locked indefinitely, again, this time by Glendale Park rangers, Sunday, June 17, at 4 p.m after the last scheduled city-sponsored public visitation concluded.

See a quick video of it here on YouTube.com. (Sorry for the low quality, I was experimenting in the bright sunlight and the exposure is a bit off.)

This comes one year after cemetery co-owner Moshe Goldsman closed the gates on June 13, 2006, citing financial difficulties stemming a tangled web of legal problems with the state, accusations of mismanagement and mishandling of human remains. Since then, a class-action civil lawsuit has been added to the list of Grand View's woes.

An estimated 600 people (292 carloads of people plus walk-ins) took advantage of the community serviceon June 17- a record, second only to the first limited visitation which attracted 400-plus carloads of mourners.

Among them were Shirley Noel and her husband, Ray, who have faithfully attended every Sunday cemetery opening since last August, except for last month when they were traveling across the country, to tend to a dozen or so family graves.

I met up with Shirley and Ray in Section M when I noticed them watering a tall bush. Shirley told me that her grandmother, Helen Campbell, planted the bush near the grave of her husband, Chester, (Shirley's "Poppo") 46 years ago, in 1961. That gave me some interesting perspective, as that was the year I was born. Shirley said it was the year her daughter was born, too.

Every visitation Shirley and Ray water the bush with 12 one-gallon jugs of water. They often use some of that water to hydrate the flowers on area graves as well.

"I've given up bringing living flowers, though, they dry up so fast and blow away," said Shirley as she nodded toward the artificial blooms now adorning her grandparent's grave.

"The city's been sticking their neck way out by sponsoring these days on private property," noted Ray, a retired city inspector, when our discussion turned to the possibility that the city may no longer take responsibility for opening the gates on limited Sundays.

"And we appreciate what they've done," added Shirley, who has been coming to Grand View as far back as she can remember. "My father has been buried here for 50 years," she noted. Her family's roots at Grand View extend back to her great-grandparents and includes other relatives such as an uncle, too.

Like a lot of people, the Noels are frustrated with what they see happening to what was once a beautiful cemetery.

"I started writing to Marsha Howard in 1993 about the condition of the grounds and every year she'd reply that they were working on it.," said Shirley, who also said her correspondence file includes letters to the State Cemetery and Funeral Bureau, to no avail.

Ray and Shirley say they would like to see the city continue to sponsor the limited visitation days and intend to be at the June 26 Glendale City Council meeting to see what transpires, in person.

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