HANSON, KY . (WEHT) – Burying a loved one is always difficult, but many who have buried their families in Hanson Cemetery in Hanson, KY say they are dealing with more unfortunate circumstances.
Judy Miller lost her son two years ago and says her and her daughter in law, as well as the rest of their family, have been hurt on how they feel the cemetery has disrespected their loved ones.
“Before the rules even changed, I had a custom Harley Davidson reef made for my son and because it wasn’t Memorial Day I couldn’t have it out here,” said Miller.
Mayor Jimmy Epley says the city is not trying to disrespect plots and decorations, but want residents to understand the rules are in place for a reason. One of those main reasons is for landscaping reasons and treating the grass and area around plots.
“There were just so many loose items and stuff that it was getting hard to keep them off the grounds to do the maintinence that we need to do,” Mayor Epley explained.
Miller says she and her daughter-in-law tried to go to the city council meeting, but they were told that subject was not being discussed.
“It’s a disgrace to not only me and people who have been here forever, to the veterans that they destroyed their stuff,” Miller stated.
Mayor Epley believes with the strong winds that the area has seen over the last few weeks, more and more items have been scattered across the land.
“We’re not trying to disrespect anyone, whether they’re veterans or anything,” Epley stated. “I’m a veteran, we’re not trying to differentiate against anyone. We want to make it as best we can, but we have the maintenance problem we have to take care of,” he added.
He also discussed that when strong winds do move in and moves items to different places, it’s hard for them to figure out where the items are suppose to be put back.
Even with the bad weather over the last week in the area, Miller says she is not convinced that is the reason many items were moved from their original location.
“We had bad winds what last Friday, tornado warnings,” said Miller. “I was here Saturday everything was still here. I mean it’s just disrespectful.”
