Bachelor's Grove Paranormal Forums
Pictures => General Pictures (NON-PARANORMAL) => Topic started by: bodhisattva on Mar 31 2010 - 01:37AM
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Wondering if anyone has ever seen anything like this before? I was out at a cemetery and I saw headstones scattered throughout the cemetery that had small "Perpetual Care" or "Special Care" plates on the ground infront of the headstones. I am assuming that the family paid extra money to try and ensure their loved ones grave is taken care of more than the others? From what I was seeing the graves with these were not treated any different.
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Hmmm....
That is kind of weird, I have never seen anything like that. Usually "perpetual care" and upkeep is included in the price. Although one would wonder what that really would entail at some cemeteries. :) Perpetual is for a long time as well. :)
It is possible the family paid some extra cash for special treatment. The cemeteries responsibility only goes to a certain point though. I know once at a local township owned cemetery in Michigan, one of my relatives family marker fell over. It was not a grave, it just marked the family plot where the graves are. Anyway, it was one of those big obelisk types. It laid there for like a year. So a call was made to the cemetery to complain and they said we had to call the monument company to fix it. Well we did and the monument company fixed it free of charge. The thing was over 100 years old though, we were lucky the company was still around, otherwise it might have laid there for who knows how long.
I suspect it would have been fixed by the cemetery eventually, but it might have been a half fix, and my relative at the time liked to have things done right.
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Maybe they paid extra for prayers to be said??
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http://www.dmgov.org/qfullhit.htw?CiWebHitsFile=/mayor_council/ordinanc/2002_ord/14178.htm (http://www.dmgov.org/qfullhit.htw?CiWebHitsFile=/mayor_council/ordinanc/2002_ord/14178.htm)
Scroll about half way done and it explains roughly what it means.
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Perpetual care is money paid to help provide maintenance to graves and cemeteries, such as lawnmowing and fertilizing. Perpetual care is kept in its own account, and the money paid by the individual(s) purchasing a lot is deposited into that account. Only the interest, and not the principal, of the perpetual care account may be expended for care of cemeteries.
In those cemeteries under the jurisdiction of the Cemetery Board, two principal trust funds exist: the perpetual care fund and the permanent maintenance fund. The perpetual care fund consists of individual and varied amounts of contributions by lot owners. The permanent maintenance fund is funded with a portion of current lot sale receipts and $35 from every interment.
The important distinction between these two funds is that perpetual care funds are used for the care of individual graves, plots, mausoleums, or columbarium spaces; while permanent maintenance funds are for cemetery care overall. Only the interest from these funds can be used for maintenance; the principal must remain intact.