Posted on Tue, Jan. 17, 2006
Pet cemetery threatened by development
By Amit R. Paley
Washington Post
WASHINGTON – The roster of the deceased at suburban Rosa Bonheur Memorial Park reads like a who’s who of Washington-area pets: Mary Ann, a beloved elephant from the Baltimore Zoo. Tiny B.B., a canine mascot for the Washington Bullets. Wiggles, a 29-year-old champion horse, and Corp. Rex Ahlbin, a World War II combat dog who died during fighting at Guadalcanal. All are among the 22,000 animals buried there.
But what was once notable as a pioneering pet cemetery – the first in the nation to allow people and their pets to be buried side by side – has devolved over the past decade into a dilapidated eyesore, plagued by allegations of theft and persistent speculation that the burial ground will soon be turned into a strip mall. The current owner won’t comment on any plans.
Unkempt grass is knee-high. Rusty beer cans and a tire litter the grounds. A few weeks ago, a large oak tree fell onto the grave of Loki, a local police dog, but no one has moved it.
“This is a sin before the Lord,” said Joyce Williams, 65, who cried as she walked between sunken graves filled with water and trash to reach the grave of Wee Lady Lexie, her Yorkshire terrier. “How can someone care more about dollar bills than respecting the dead?”
The park’s decline highlights the precarious existence of pet cemeteries, which are unregulated in most states, and their increasing transformation into easy targets for developers nationwide.
“The problem is that the property is worth just too darn much,” said Robin Lauver, president of the National Association of Pet Funeral Directors. “Now you have hundreds of these pet cemeteries that can be sold off as building lots. And there are no laws to stop it.”
Named after a 19th-century animal painter, Rosa Bonheur Memorial Park was founded in 1935 in Elkridge, Md., as one of the world’s first pet cemeteries. Its 1979 decision to allow owners to be buried next to their pets made national headlines.
At least 20 Homo sapiens are buried there, according to former manager Marilyn Phillips. One of those, U.S. Army Pfc. Melvin Ward, jumped out of an airplane without a parachute because he was despondent over the death of his dog, Moo, she said. They are buried next to each other.
The cemetery fell into disrepair in the 1990s. Grieving pet owners complained that owner William Green would not deliver the funeral services for which they had paid hundreds of dollars.
Six days after Green gave a Baltimore couple the ashes of what were supposed to be their dogs Tessa and Suzy, police discovered their uncremated bodies in a cemetery shed, according to court documents.
In 1996, Howard County and 16 pet owners brought criminal and civil charges against Green, who was convicted of misdemeanor theft and ordered to pay tens of thousands of dollars in restitution. Green could not be reached to comment.
After Green declared personal bankruptcy, the cemetery was purchased by Gunter Tertel, a local businessman, and managed by Phillips, a cheerful animal lover.
But animal lovers didn’t know Tertel apparently never intended to continue operating the cemetery.
“He didn’t want me to do any burials there at all,” said Phillips, 68. “He just wanted to make sure his sheet-metal company next door could use the back of the cemetery for access to the road.”
Phillips, a family friend of Tertel’s, said the cemetery continually lost money when she ran it. She said she worked there for free and maintained the grounds almost single-handedly. “I think it’s basically been closed since I left in 2002,” she said.
“It may turn into a strip mall very soon,” she added. “When I worked there, the land was valued at $2 million.”
A woman who answered the door at the cemetery’s former office said she had been hired to renovate the building for a new tenant, which she would not name, and said she knew nothing about a pet cemetery.
Gail Zandel, 58, fears the land will be developed and the animals’ remains dumped in a communal grave. She is trying to organize a group of pet owners to buy the land and run the cemetery.
“It feels as if someone tried to dig up the human members of my family,” said Zandel, whose three dogs, turtle and cat are buried at Bonheur. “This is my worst possible nightmare.”
Some pet owners have given up. Mary Nelson, 60, of Pasadena said she couldn’t stand to see the cemetery’s condition during her weekly visits to the graves of Casey and Fancy, her black-and-tan boxers, whom she had exhumed and moved to a cemetery across the street.
“All I would do is cry and cry, because it wasn’t taken care of properly,” she sobbed. “We put our money into this place thinking it’s our pets’ final resting place, and then we get this? It’s disgusting. I wouldn’t put an ant out there.”
Williams refuses to move her pets: Lexie and three cats, Shiela, Midnight and Muffin.
“If necessary, I will chain myself to this tree to stop someone from digging up my animals,” she said. “They were the loves of my life, and I will bust heaven and hell to make sure they rest in peace.”
