On the 16th of April, on a tip from a fellow Fall River History Club member, I visited Oak Grove Cemetery and Sarah Cornell’s grave. I was told that Sarah’s stone had been knocked over and was lying flat on the ground. Indeed it was. But looking around I noticed a larger problem than one grave marker desecrated–dozens of graves in this section, one of the oldest sections in the cemetery and the final resting place of dozens of children, had been damaged and/or destroyed by vandals.
These images were taken today. They show a large collection of makers knocked over, pushed off their pedestals, and, in some cases, shattered and broken to bits.
Back in April, I tried to get the Herald News interested in this story, but even after a visit with Marc Dion to Oak Grove two weeks ago, there has been nothing published in the paper on the problem.
According to the three men who are the sum total of all cemetery workers (in addition to the Director) for all of Fall River’s city cemeteries, grave vandalism is a growing problem of late–especially in Oak Grove where foot traffic is possible even after closing time. One morning, they told me, an entire row of granite headstones had been toppled. With a city struggling to find the money to pay its firefighters, cemetery maintenance is probably low on the list of priorities. However, it is yet another indication of the disregard that some of the city’s residents have for their community. A sad reminder that we live in a city that cannot take care of itself adequately.
Every day we lose a little bit more of our precious history.
