NEW BEDFORD When Jan Dexter and her sisters went to Rural Cemetery to place flowers on their mother’s grave just before Mother s Day, she was shocked to see that two small cement statues and a perpetual light candle holder were missing.
She called the cemetery office and said she was told all decorations from graves were removed by the department and owners had 30 days to retrieve the items or they would be thrown away. Lucky for us, we were within the 30 days to get our items back,” Dexter said.
When Patrick Hogan went to visit his best friend’s grave in Rural Cemetery, as he does every week, he was visibly upset to find the carefully placed decorative marble stones, an owl figurine, an LED butterfly and memorial remembrance steppingstone were all gone. Only patches of dirt left an outline of where the items once were.