Dear Editor, City cemeteries in many places—Texas and elsewhere—have created effective and compassionate ways to enforce their versions of a “No Clutter Clause,” as it is so insensitively described in the Taylor City Cemetery’s “Rules for Beautification and Improvement.” From asking families to supplement perpetual- care funds, which every Taylor plot-owner is required to pay into already, by the way, to allowing church and community groups to organize volunteer cemetery clean-ups, cemeteries elsewhere are keeping things tidy without running roughshod over the bereaved. I likely am among many who have glossed over the “fine print” of the Taylor no-clutter clause while making funeral arrangements. When you’re in a state of shock, as we were after the sudden death in February of our dear friend, who would think to ask why neither a cross nor more than one set of flowers could be placed on her grave?
A second shock followed in the mail. A curt note indicated—in red ink—that our deceased friend was in violation of cemetery rules for having a tiny Aggie flag marking her grave as we waited for her stone to be set.
Brutal! No one wants a messy cemetery, but overenforcement of a rule like this is only hurting people who are already suffering. On behalf of grieving families, may we ask the city of Taylor to explore solutions that will serve the clean-up purpose and respect hurting hearts? .
Patricia McMorrow Friend of Denise Richter for 39 years and executor of her estate
