Don’t worry – I’m unarmed… (and a scavenger hunt)

While the title of this post is a little smart-alecky, I don’t consider what I’m posting about to be a light topic.

The title came to me while I was looking at this photograph of a memorial for the Lacey family in Woodland Cemetery in Cleveland. The erosion and possible vandalism to the Lacey monument is sadly typical of Woodland in general. It is a cemetery in disrepair. There is a cemetery foundation, which does its best, but we all know how hard it is for non-profits in general, and in this economy in particular. A few cemeteries are extremely well-off, but most historic cemeteries have few resources towards their upkeep.

So if you care about cemetery preservation, find out if your local historic cemetery has a foundation, and consider throwing a few bucks its way the next time you are making charitable donations. In that vein, while researching this post, I discovered that there is a Historic Cleveland Cemeteries Scavenger Hunt this weekend. Hope to see some of you there!