ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — The manager of a local, privately-run cemetery has locked the front gate to the property, prompting complaints from some families that their elderly family members can no longer visit loved ones.
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The Taft Memorial Cemetery on W. Landstreet Road has been in use for almost a century, if not longer, according to the dates on some of the gravestones.
Access to the property wasn’t a problem until earlier this year, when a chain and lock suddenly appeared on the gates without warning.
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“It’s like, this ain’t right, this ain’t cool,” Gerald Pride said, adding that his wife’s family originally donated the land back in the day.
The site is still accessible through a pedestrian gate that is unlocked 24/7. The Pride family’s resting places are located at the very back of the cemetery, hundreds of feet away from the gates. Gerald said his mother can’t make the trek on foot, in addition to several other family members.
They said their only options are to block the sidewalk in front of the gates or park around the corner on a side street, doubling the journey on foot.
Pride said the manager claimed the lock was needed because of a crime problem, and efforts to work with the manager to find a compromise had gone nowhere. He also showed WFTV a letter from the state declining to get involved in the private cemetery’s affairs.
In a phone call, the manager said items had been taken from the cemetery but didn’t provide specifics. She said she had become the de facto manager of the cemetery and president of its board when her neighbor died, since she was the only person familiar with the cemetery’s books.
Now that she was hitting retirement age, she said dealing with the cemetery every day was too much for her, and no one volunteered to help her, so she locked the gates. She said she would unlock them if someone called her ahead of time and arranged an appointment.
Pride said the caretaker never asked anyone for help, and families shouldn’t have to make an appointment to place flowers or be with an ancestor.
“My personal belief is, if the cemetery got to be locked up, at least have a schedule,” he said.
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In a follow-up phone call, his wife said no one was sure what the cemetery’s bylaws were, or how others could get involved – or replace the caretaker as president of the board.
However, she said she would try to get a group of people together that could volunteer – and possibly get the gates unlocked again.
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