Ashland Cemetery gets state grant to help with ongoing repairs following vandalism

ASHLAND — The Ashland Cemetery received a state grant recently to help with ongoing repairs to vandalized headstones and property. 

The Ohio Department of Commerce announced Tuesday that it awarded the cemetery with a $2,500 grant. A cemetery board member said the money would most likely be used to pay for repairs to a bench that was damaged in June. 

The bench was one of several damages reported from the June 11 incident.

Ashland Police Chief Dave Lay said the case remains open. Detectives have not been able to identify suspects.

“We did get a comparable DNA sample back this week to an unknown male,” he said. At this point, however, the DNA hasn’t led to matches.

Lay urged the public to provide tips.

“Someone in the community knows something about what happened there,” he said.

Overall, the vandalism led to 133 toppled headstones, broken windows and a wrecked bronze military memorial. 

‘Everyone has been so kind’

Amy Clark, vice president of the Ashland Cemetery Association’s board, said she applied for the Ohio Department of Commerce’s Division of Real Estate and Professional Licensing grant fund. 

“Everyone has been so kind,” she said, referring to the public’s outpouring of support following the vandalism. 

The City of Ashland established a special fund to help the non-profit organization’s fundraising efforts. As of Oct. 1, a total of $49,398 has streamed into that fund, according to a document tracking those donations. 

Donations to that fund include money raised through several local individuals, a lemonade stand and a cookout benefit hosted by Turk Bros Custom Meats. (The latter of which raised $10,354.) 

Clark said the cemetery has spent $18,500 on expenses related to situating toppled headstones back onto their foundations. She said Ashland Monument did that work. The expense has been recorded in the city’s document. 

The Ashland Historical Society has also used $14,995 to pay for a new military memorial. The historical society owned the original memorial that was wrecked. The $14,995 came out of the city’s special fund, too. 

Those two expenses leave $15,903 left in the city’s special fund. 

A complicated process

Clark said determining the where the financial responsibility falls has been a complicated process. Some toppled headstones have living family members. In those cases, the family members are responsible for the costs associated with replacing or repairing a headstone. (In most of those cases, home insurance policies covered those costs.) 

There are also many headstones belonging to military veterans. Costs associated with replacing the flags and bronze stars that are used to label such headstones fall upon the local veterans office. 

The majority of the toppled and damaged headstones, however, do not have any immediate living family members. 

Clark said most of the vandalism, 90 to 95%, occurred in an old section of the cemetery. The costs associated with repairing or replacing those headstones fall upon the cemetery, Clark said. 

So the cemetery is left to make a hard choice. 

“We probably won’t replace the old headstones if we can still read the names on them. It sounds cold, but I don’t know if there’s going to be enough money to do that,” she said. 

Clark said the cemetery is still working through all those details.

Ashland Cemetery was one of 45 across 31 counties that received a grant. The annual grant is funded by $1 of every $2.50 from burial permit fees received by the Division of Real Estate and Professional Licensing.

“This is the seventh year the Division has awarded grant funds to assist registered nonprofit cemeteries in completing critical projects that may otherwise never be addressed due to lack of funding,” REPL Superintendent Daphne Hawk said.

“We are honored to provide these important funds to help Ohio’s beautiful cemeteries repair roadways, restore monuments, repair fencing, improve signage and enhance visitor safety, all of which helps preserve an important piece of our state’s history.”