Wednesday July 28, 2010

   

 

Cemetery Vandalism

At Kreider Church of the Brethren

Wednesday, July 28

 

I was going to post the first twenty pictures from our trip to Fergus Truck Show, Fergus, Ontario, last week, but since this is a current event, and was on the local news tonight, I decided to post this ahead of our trip.

 

 

Over the weekend vandals overturned about ninety tombstones in the historic Kreider Church of The Brethren Cemetery, Manheim, PA, a church owned by our congregation. Today about twenty men from our church and a monument company uprighted the heavy stones.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The men were careful to treat each stone with respect and care. In this case they spent a lot of time leveling the ground for this set of stones.

 

 

They kept working until it was perfect.

 

 

Glenn and Gerald uprighting the stone with two head markers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Josh Diffenderfer reading a very old stone.

 

 

 

 

Putting a stone in place by using at truck hoist.

 

 

Notice the monument employee on the right operating the remote as John and Marlin put the stone on its base.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I understand that they finished about 2:00 p.m.

 

 

As I was leaving, I noticed Eileen Heller weeding around the men’s outhouse. She brought her two youngest sons to help with the tombstones, and decided to do something worthwhile while she waited for the men to finish their job.

 

 

Somebody keeps this outhouse looking good.

This church is only used a few times each summer for a community hymn sing.

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I found an interesting website concerning the vandalism. If you are interested, go to http://lancastergraveyardrabbit.wordpress.com/

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