Cemetery

For the fourth time in seven years, the Lower Southampton Planning Commission has voted down a request to rezone a parcel of land near the White Chapel Gardens Memorial Park on Street Road. The commission voted 5-2 Thursday to turn down Frank and Donna Meli's request to change the zoning on the site at Street Road and Bustleton Pike from a cemetery to a commercial use. Several commission members expressed reservations about a three-story office building the couple has proposed for the land.

The six partygoers celebrated inside the cemetery, but mourned as they were about to leave. That's because Troy Cooper, 21, and two of his armed gang were there to hold them up Jan. 15, Assistant District Attorney Rayford A. Means said. The gang specialized in graveside robberies. Cooper, of 25th Street near Dauphin, pleaded guilty Thursday to six counts of robbery and one charge of conspiracy. Common Pleas Judge James J. Fitzgerald deferred sentencing at the request of defense lawyer William Stewart, who wants two murder cases pending against Cooper to be decided first.

Sunday mornings at the Trinity Church Oxford in Lawndale are usually serene and peaceful. Parishioners stroll along a sidewalk, surrounded by towering sycamore and huge dogwood trees. They pass rows of neatly kept tombstones, bearing reminders of former parishioners from as far back as the 1700s. They walk into the red-carpeted church built in 1711 and accented with stained-glass windows. But yesterday, parishioners got a glimpse of the ugliness of petty crime. Sometime after 11 p.m. Friday, someone knocked over and broke nine tombstones in the cemetery, on Longshore Avenue near Rising Sun Avenue.

It was a peaceful country cemetery that became a foul, fetid dumping ground and a hangout for drug pushers and addicts. But a handful of stubborn Quakers and neighbors refused to abandon historic Fair Hill Burial Grounds in North Philadelphia. Their commitment and cleanup work will be rewarded tomorrow at a ceremony placing the site on the National Register of Historic Places. Several mayoral candidates and District Attorney Lynn Abraham will speak at the 10 a.m. ceremony, when a historic marker will be placed at the cemetery on 9th Street between Cambria and Indiana.

The East Whiteland Board of Supervisors has approved subdivisions of the Philadelphia Memorial Park and the Haym Salomon Memorial Park, but no development plans have been submitted for the land. The owners, members of the Houck family who live in communities in northern Chester County, filed for subdivisions to meet financial requirements in connection with their purchase of the land last summer, according to their attorney, Stephen Aichele. Aichele said about half of each park was used as a cemetery and that additional land would be reserved for the cemeteries.

Teresa "Tess" J. Celia Sansone, 84, supervisor of New St. Mary's Cemetery in Bellmawr for 34 years, died July 7 at West Jersey Hospital-Voorhees. A Haddonfield resident for the last three years, she was born in Philadelphia and raised in Camden. Mrs. Sansone worked for the Archdiocese of Camden for 52 years. Her husband, the late Andrea Sansone, began working at the Bellmawr cemetery in 1940. Three years later, he was named superintendent, and the couple moved into the old Glover Farmhouse, which was the superintendent's quarters on the 100-acre cemetery.

The venerable Fair Hill Burial Ground has been in North Philadelphia for nearly three centuries. But in the last 15 years, it had become so overgrown with weeds and shrubs that it seemed only junkies and prostitutes remembered it existed. Yesterday morning, the newly cleaned cemetery - the final resting place of some of Philadelphia's most famous Quakers and abolitionists - was added to the National Register of Historic Places, which should mean it will not be forgotten again. It is not a huge cemetery, only about 4 1/2 acres tucked away between Germantown Avenue and Indiana, Cambria and Ninth Streets.

Perhaps a thunderbolt can settle the squabble between the Quakers and Baptist minister who pray to the same God but cannot agree on the fate of a tattered North Philadelphia cemetery. More likely a lawsuit will end their quarrel about chaos in the historic burial grounds where Quaker suffragist Lucretia Mott lies buried near the burnt-out husk of a truck and crack vials decorate 18th-century marble headstones. Their feud is not about religious differences, but priorities. And the two sides, which communicate solely by legal summons, have parted like the Red Sea. The Society of Friends has organized a new charity and started raising money to launch the Lucretia Mott Center in the impoverished neighborhood surrounding Fairhill Burial Ground at Cambria Street and Germantown Avenue.

Philadelphia schools chief Paul Vallas said yesterday that he intended to build a new Frances E. Willard Elementary School on the site of a former cemetery in Kensington even though the district would have to excavate the remains of more than 150 people. The district will build the school at 1930 E. Elkhart St. if it can obtain the site, which the city owns, Vallas said. The city originally asked the district to pay $750,000 for the parcel. Jacqueline Barnett, Mayor Street's education secretary, said the city generally sought "fair-market value" for property.

DEAR ABBY: I am writing in response to the letter you printed from "Respectful in Ohio. " I am so glad you addressed the subject of proper etiquette in cemeteries. The cemetery where my family members are buried has become a playground for the neighbors in the area. When I visit, I see people walking their dogs on and off leashes even though they are aware of the "No Dogs Allowed" signs. Children are bicycling, rollerblading and skateboarding, along with joggers and walkers. I come to the cemetery to visit with my lost loved ones and tend to their graves.

Man, 19, found slain outside cemetery * Frankford Avenue near Cheltenham Police are investigating the shooting death of a 19-year-old man who was found outside a cemetery in Northeast Philadelphia's Wissinoming section late Sunday. The victim died at 12:16 Monday morning at Aria Health's Torresdale hospital, police said. Officers on patrol found the man facedown and bleeding, police said. He had been shot in the head, chest and arm, police said. It is not yet clear whether the young man had been shot there or elsewhere.

Police are investigating the shooting death of a 19-year-old man who was found outside a cemetery in Northeast Philadelphia late Sunday. The victim died at 12:16 this morning at Aria Health's Torresdale Campus, police said. Police officers on patrol found the man face down and bleeding on the 5700 block of Frankford Avenue, home to three cemeteries, police said. He had been shot in the head, chest and arm, police said. It is not clear yet if the young man had been shot there or elsewhere.

Across the rolling Southwest Philadelphia landscape along Cobbs Creek are the remains of the city's movers and shakers - politicians, Medal of Honor recipients, sports figures, entertainers. They were buried at Mount Moriah Cemetery decades ago when the grounds were carefully tended and graves were visited by family members who left flowers, then lingered to admire obelisks and statues. Now, the cemetery is abandoned by the owner, the city is leading an effort to place a nonprofit in charge - and much of the 200-plus acres is returning to nature.

DEAR ABBY: Years ago I lost my beautiful wife. We had been married for more than 30 years. I bought a plot at the cemetery for both of us, and she's buried there now. I have since remarried and have been blessed with another wonderful wife. There are no spaces left next to the plot, although I would like to be placed between both my wives when the time comes. Any recommendations? - Mr. In-Between DEAR MR. IN-BETWEEN: You have a couple of options. One would be to ask if your cemetery permits "double-depth" burials, in which one vault is placed on top of another.

On each side of the elegant double gate on Kaighns Avenue, large granite monoliths will honor each branch of the military. At the end of a divided macadam road, a memorial will pay tribute to Vietnam veterans, while a looping brick walkway will carry visitors past graves to a bluff overlooking the Cooper River. And there, polished black-granite columbariums and mausoleums, and rows of headstones will cover the grounds, while the flags of the nation, state, and county flutter overhead.

Clusters of spiky yucca leaves sprout among the tombstones at Mount Peace Cemetery in Lawnside, where maintenance problems seem as ubiquitous as the perennial graveyard plant. "We try to keep it up, and we're going to keep it up," says trustee Mary Ann Wardlow, who also is mayor of the historically African American borough. A public meeting to organize efforts to collect debris, trim vegetation, and otherwise spruce up the landmark cemetery on the White Horse Pike is set for 7 o'clock Tuesday night at Borough Hall.

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. – Joe Paterno will be buried here Wednesday at Pine Hall Cemetery, according to a source familiar with the arrangements. A private funeral was scheduled Wednesday afternoon, after which a motorcade was to proceed out West College Avenue to an undisclosed location. The 157-year-old cemetery is located adjacent to West College Avenue, about a half-mile from the borough's center. Originally a burial ground for the German Reformed (Lutheran) congregation, the 14-acre graveyard was opened to the public in 1898.

DEAR ABBY: My 87-year-old mother recently discovered that the mausoleum site she had reserved for herself - and paid for - next to my father's grave was occupied by my uncle's ashes and headstone. Mom had moved away 20 years ago and had not visited the cemetery in all that time. My cousin's explanation, when confronted by my tearful mom, was that it was a "temporary solution" as the mausoleum was full at the time of my uncle's death. They were planning to move him. Apparently, it has taken 14 years for them to get around to it. Mom had to send a notarized letter to the cemetery asking that my uncle's remains be removed.

Vineland police are investigating what they suspect might be ritualistic animal sacrifices after a Sacred Heart Cemetery caretaker told them he has found a number of mutilated animals at that Catholic cemetery over the last several months. Police said the caretaker finally told them about the mutilated animals after finding a severed pig's head in a plastic bag near a grave site Oct. 18. They said he told them he disposed of the pig's head in the cemetery trash bin, the same way he had done with other animal parts since early this summer.