LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WHAS11) – A final resting place doesn't sound like a place for a child's birthday party but it's exactly what happened at Eastern Cemetery over the weekend.
"One hundred years of family burials in my family have went on here. And to me, that's a sacred place," Wayne Miller, Friends of Eastern Cemetery volunteer said.
But this Sunday--Eastern Cemetery's sacredness was compromised for a kid birthday party.
"The slide was in this area. I witnessed it--as I left I witnessed it. I could see it from back there but I witnessed it very closely because the children we everywhere out into the drive. At the front of the cemetery, the very front, there were children all over the grounds here playing amongst the stones--some of them laying in the grass," Miller said.
Miller is a part of the group Friends of Eastern Cemetery. Every Sunday, volunteers maintain the grounds. And after six hours of work this past Sunday volunteers noticed inflatable slides being set up. So they approached the party hosts.
"One of the guys that lives in that apartment building down there claimed to own the cemetery which we all know better," Andy Harpole, Friends of Eastern Cemetery president said.
In 1992, the former owners of the cemetery abandoned the property--with no one left to maintain it. And since volunteers started doing their part in its upkeep in 2013--they've taken a lot of pride in the cemetery.
"It is not a pretty sight. It's like a carnival event--whatever they were having a party. They should've rented a place to do that. This was not for rent. Our graves are here. Our family is here. We feel that this belongs to us," Miller said.
It's a place without a true, legal owner--but now many are stepping up to defend their loved ones who claim Eastern Cemetery as their final resting place.
LOL!
