your message is very encouraging, I'm from Michigan but am happy to hear of a 'uniform state code', that would be great. Don't let McCain's office forget about it. Marge ----- Original Message ----- From: William Spurlock To: INPCRP-L@rootsweb.com Sent: Thursday, January 03, 2002 10:41 AM Subject: RE: [INPCRP] Cemetery Laws & Such Jack is right, times have changed fast. Faster than some on may want to realize. You may recall that last year I conducted a petition drive pushing for a set of national laws on cemetery preservation. Not many of you know what came out of that. The petition drew the attention of some rather powerful people in D.C. and we had plans underway for a series of meetings that would have been the starting point for the construction of a series of Uniform State Code laws pertaining to cemetery issues. What we had planed on doing was looking at all the existing laws from all the states, using the best parts for a starting point and adding to them as needed. It would have been up to each state to adopt them or not, but I think there was a good chance of it working. There were several states being looked at as tests. New York, which currently has little or no laws in cemetery preservation was one of those states. The meetings were set to be held in DC in November of last year. John McCain and Orin Hatch were two of the people that were backing this. Then came September 11th. That, and the attitude of the current administration changed everything. Things have been put on hold now on this, but the interest is still there. I am in communication with McCain's office on a regular basis, and when the time is right this will get rolling again. The problem is, the time was right years ago. William Spurlock Saving Graves http://www.savinggraves.com -----Original Message----- From: Jb502000@aol.com [mailto:Jb502000@aol.com] Sent: Thursday, January 03, 2002 11:08 AM To: INPCRP-L@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [INPCRP] Cemetery Laws & Such In a message dated 1/3/02 10:32:22 AM US Eastern Standard Time, andimac@oz.net writes: > Most definitely, Sue! Here in Washington, most of the cemeteries seemed to > have caretakers up until then...people from the neighborhood or interested > community members. We also saw a lot of organizations that took care of > cemeteries. Andi, and Sue What we all have to realize is changes have came fast and furious since December 7,1941. These things have changed our way of life forever. After the war 4,000,000 veterans had to re plan their way of life. They were busy raising a family. The women were busy mothers and New Home housewives. Then all of the conflicts since then, and Television was new from the late 30's to the late 50's This left no time to even think about cleaning a cemetery. In order to raise a family in the 70's and 80's husband and wife both had, and still do, work to keep up with the bills. Again no time for Cemeteries. Then we come to the computer age, we still have no more time, but the baby boomers are getting older and are beginning to see their family cemeteries badly neglected. Since computers link almost every house in the country people are beginning to see what terrible conditions the cemeteries are in and are willing to take a little time and do what they can. They are able to read about the fact we have no viable cemetery laws. Most thought that cemeteries were protected by law. Legislators from WW ll until recently were busy with more important laws. Only when the power of the Internet began to raise the issue did they begin to set up and listen. Let's keep the pressure on. It's to bad the cleanup is being done by volunteers instead of the duly appointed officials. Thank God I can see that changing. The trustees are beginning to assume their responsibility. We have at least 2 on the List willing to accept their responsibilities, now we need the County Commissioners to give them the money. As far as destroyed cemeteries, there are 2 in Floyd co. that were destroyed in the late 1800s. Sorry I don't know when to shut up. Jack E. Briles, Sr. jb502000@aol.com Floyd County INPCRP Coordinator PO Box 444 New Albany, In. 47151-0444 (812) 282-6585 ==== INPCRP Mailing List ==== If we cannot respect the dead, how can we respect the living? ==== INPCRP Mailing List ==== Cemetery: (n) A marble orchard not to be taken for granite.