I got a message from a fellow photographer who wrote about a bad experience happening around the old State hospital cemetery. He writes in part:
"Two years age I was at my grandsons football game in the football park across the street. There happened to be a roller hockey games going on too. People were parking in the cemetery on top of the unmarked graves. I was furious. I asked the people who were directing traffic there why are they allowing people to park their cars on top of children's graves. They did not have a answer for me. They just said, you have to talk to this person & that person. They made me mad.
I want a answer for this kind of cemetery vandalism. I went to the Dixon Park District. They just thought I was a pain in the ass. But they made some phone calls. I called the prison & complained too. The next weekend the same thing happened. people parking on the graves. I was pissed. I went to the newspaper & told them what was going on. I wrote article about what was going at the cemetery. How people were parking on the graves, leaving trash, the tire ruts across the graves. .They published my article. The next weekend when I went back they had the cemetery roped of with "No Parking" signs up."
Not just at the old State hospital cemetery but at ANY historic site, if you see people parking or driving over graves and headstones with little or no regard for the sanctity of the place Speak Up!
Thanks for listening!
I have a sister, Louise, who was born in April 1942 and died in Feb, 1954, who spent the last 9 years of her life in the Dixon State School Hospital and was buried in the Dixon Developmental Center Cemetery, "Field of Stones" as you called it. Her grave's headstone was in the section of those that were set flat even with the grass. It has long ago disintegrated. So she might be reposing in one of the 'unmarked' graves. I am horrified to think that people would park their cars on top of her body that's been resting in peace for these past 63 years. There should be a fence surrounding the entire cemetery to prevent any such incidents or vandalism. May she Rest In Peace Undisturbed For The Rest Of Eternity. Submitted By Her Ever Loving Only Brother, Albert
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