I strolled the grounds of Grand View Memorial Park during the March and May public visitations, snapping photos and searching for answers to the many questions surrounding the troubled Glendale cemetery.

I didn't get a lot of answers. Nevertheless, I was amazed and impressed with the number of visitors who joined the ranks of a hard-working volunteer clean-up crew.

Months of neglect and lack of water have taken a serious toll on the 124-year-old cemetery.

While the legal wrangling goes on over lawsuits and management issues, Grand View's grounds and structures suffer. Some of the shady trees have been cut down and those that remain are struggling. The once-green lawns have turned brown and are filled with wild grasses, weeds and trash - covering up many of the flat headstones.

During the short four-hour visitations, I watched some of the family members and acquaintances of the deceased go to work on one gravesite after another. For many the clean up came first; before setting out the flowers or taking a few precious moments to remember someone who had passed on.

Lenore Devlin of Laguna Beach meticulously arranged elegant vases with long stem red roses and other flowers at the gravesite of close friend, Ara Azaryan. Devlin told me Azaryan was shot and killed for "no reason" in 2004, after he and a cousin were accosted by three men in Panorama City.

While she raked and tidied up the gravesite, Devlin expressed her frustration at the condition of the cemetery.

"How long does it take to get the water (turned) on?" she asked.

I didn't have an answer for her. It seemed to me watering the grounds would be a top priority and not something that should take weeks or months to accomplish.

"I'm happy we are able to do this," William Maier of Glendale said as he scrubbed and brushed debris from the headstones of several relatives. He got help from his wife, Leslie,and 14-year-old daughter, Natalie.

At one point, William reminded the others to be careful to not scratch the flat grave markers. I saw this same kind of respect and reverence for the dead in other visitors who took it upon themselves to spruce-up the gravesites.

While most of visitors attacked the stubborn weeds and thick grass with hand clippers and rakes, Kristine Kull of West Hills came armed with a serious piece of equipment.

When I spotted Kull, she was cutting around a flat headstone with a battery-powered weed whacker. Kull wielded the Black & Decker Grass Hog like a pro. She has five relatives buried at Grand View and started visiting the cemetery in 1954, when she was only ten.

Kull admits that sometimes she thinks of moving her relatives to another cemetery, but the expense would be more than she could handle.

"I don't know how to pay for it all," she explained as the weed whacker hummed and hacked away. An unusual sight at most cemeteries I would think, but not for Grand View - not these days.

On June 5, I received a new e-mail from plaintiff's attorney, Paul Ayers. According to the e-mail, the lawyer for the cemetery's owner, Moshe Goldsman, and all plaintiffs' attorneys have tentatively agreed to open Grand View again on Sunday, June 29, from noon to 4 p.m.

The tentative June opening for Grand View must now be finalized in an order by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Anthony Mohr. The judge is scheduled to consider the matter on June 24.

Check back on this blog for an update on the June visitation.