Quick Take
Pajaro Valley Memorial Park's decision to ask families to remove some decorations on gravesites has sparked an online petition calling on the cemetery to stop the policy. The cemetery's owner said while the policy isn't new, it hasn't been enforced for several years.
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When Anabel Chavez received a text from her mother-in-law in early April, she didn’t expect to see a picture of an “eviction-like” notice posted on her late husband’s grave.
The notice, posted by staff at Pajaro Valley Memorial Park, located on Hecker Pass Road in Watsonville, instructed families like Chavez’s that they needed to remove string lights, pots, glass vases, fences, garlands and decorations over 18 inches, such as wind chimes or pinwheels, from memorials by April 19. If the items were not removed by the deadline, cemetery staff would remove and throw them away, the letter said.
Chavez’s memorial for her husband is decorated with pictures of her and her husband, small ceramic angel statues and three rectangular acrylic boxes with artificial flowers along the perimeter of the tombstone. She makes sure to keep it confined to the space she paid almost $7,000 for, Chavez said.
Chavez’s husband died nearly three years ago in a Monterey County jail, she said. For nearly 2½ years after his death, Chavez would always visit his grave after work.
Decorations on other gravesites at the 30-acre cemetery vary. Some are elaborate with large floral arrangements and small religious statues, some resemble Chavez’s, and others are quite simple, with just a basic bronze tombstone and a picture of the deceased.
People tend to decorate graves because it’s one of the few ways to display care for the person who has passed away, said Chavez; decorating is a way for people to mourn, and families should be able to do that. “All of a sudden, they just want to throw everybody’s memorial site away,” she said.
Angry with the cemetery’s policy change and decision to deliver the news by leaving a notice on gravesites, Chavez created an online petition last week calling for the cemetery to rescind the change and “respect the grave and grieving families.” The petition had collected nearly 50 signatures at time of publication.
“It’s just rude,” she said of the rule. “That’s the place where you would think there’d be some compassion and empathy because the people there are sad.”
The policy prohibiting certain decorations isn’t something new, though it hadn’t been enforced for about four years, said the cemetery’s owner, Patrick Carroll. However, over time, it’s become harder to mow the grass around gravesites because of the elaborate decorations. The cemetery’s staff run the risk of damaging some of the family’s belongings, Carroll said. Some of the memorials are located next to each other, which can make it hard for staff to get lawnmowers in between those spaces.
“If another family has a gravesite that we need to prepare, we can’t get the equipment in even to prepare it, because we’re going to run over,” he said. “Some of the gravesites have fences around them, some of them have glass, it’s just impossible to maneuver.”
The policy will make it easier for cemetery staff to tend to the grass, prepare for burials and make it safer for people to navigate the area, Carroll said.
Families are made aware of rules regarding grave decorations when making arrangements at the cemetery — they’re listed in the contracts they sign, said Carroll. The point of placing the letter on top of memorials was so families would come into the cemetery office and talk with Carroll or any of his staff, he said.
Despite the growing support for Chavez’s online petition, Carroll said neither he nor his staff have heard any negative comments regarding the rules; rather, most families have said they understand the need to restrict gravesite decorations. He added that Pajaro Valley Memorial Park is very lenient in comparison to most cemeteries that are more restrictive when it comes to what they allow on memorials.
Carroll said he has been reaching out to Chavez to explain to her why the regulation is being enforced again.
Chavez confirmed that cemetery staff have reached out to her, but said they told her Carroll wanted to speak with her in person, which is not easy, since she lives in Anderson, four hours north of Watsonville.
She said the sudden move by the cemetery is rude and disrespectful to families with loved ones buried there. The notice had been placed on her husband’s memorial on April 1, and it wasn’t until days later when her mother-in-law visited the cemetery that Chavez learned about it.
Chavez had planned to visit the cemetery on Easter weekend — nearing the anniversary of her husband’s death — and believed she probably would have arrived at the memorial only to find it stripped of its decorations had she not been notified by her mother-in-law.
Cemetery staff have not yet removed any decorations from any of the memorials, said Carroll. Any decorations that have been removed from certain graves since the notice went out have been removed by families themselves. “It’s a Catch-22,” he said. “I don’t want to turn around and tell somebody that they can’t put something there, but you’ve got to be the bad guy.”
Once cemetery staff have been able to properly conduct maintenance, families can bring some of those decorations back, but the workers will still enforce the restrictions, he said. “We’re here to daily celebrate people’s lives and everything, and that’s why we try to take care of everything as good as we do,” Carroll said.
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