City continues work on cemetery
WESLACO — A recent letter to the editor published by the Mid Valley Town Crier on June 27 brought to light the care and maintenance of Weslaco’s oldest cemetery.
The letter by Joe de los Santos stated that he had spent more than $200 on insecticides, trimmed tree branches surrounding his mother and grandmothers’ graves himself and noticed a large hole forming next to the graves. Santos wrote he was “outraged” by the apparent lack of care at the cemetery that should be provided by the city.
“For many, many years I have steadily seen our city cemetery decline and look abandoned,” wrote Santos. “I want to challenge our city officials to go take a look at our All-American city, not the main street but our city cemetery…I also challenge our commissioners to do the same and then answer me this question, ‘what part of the All-American City is our city cemetery.’”
Pete Garcia, director of parks and recreation, is in charge of the nearly 10-acre cemetery.
“I saw the article and my supervisor, Theodoro Nevarez, said we’re going to go out and see what this gentleman was talking about,” Garcia said. “Every time it rains, a lot of the graves start caving in. We constantly go out there and try to cover all that ground. People will landscape their cemetery plots; it makes it difficult for our guys to maintain. One works at one end and the other works at the other end to constantly maintain it.”
By “landscape,” Garcia means the fencing in of family plots, planted vegetation and other items families add to gravesites.
“We changed rules and policies so it can be maintained,” Garcia said. “We’ll have only flat headstones and two vases. Two people are always there.”
The Weslaco City Cemetery, located on South Illinois Avenue and 10 th street, was established in 1922 and is the final resting place for historical Valley figures including city founders Ed Couch and Robert Reeves, Weslaco’s founder.
Harlon Block was also buried in the cemetery before his body was relocated to the Iwo Jima Memorial in Harlingen. The cemetery is awaiting a historical marker after the Texas Historical Commission designated it as a Historic Texas Cemetery.
Since the cemetery is more than 50 years old, many graves were not prepared using modern techniques needed to keep them up to shape. Many graves sink in their plots or experience cave-ins. A large mound of soil is kept at the cemetery to fill in graves that have caved in, Garcia said.
Because of the age of many of the gravesites, they were not compacted at the time of the funeral, Garcia said. Compacting is done by a machine that settles the soil after a casket is placed in a grave. Graves also need a concrete grave liner to prevent sinking.
“If they didn’t have the concrete liner that will hold the dirt, the casket isn’t strong enough and eventually flattens out and (the gravesite) continues sinking and then it’s an endless job,” said Santos de Leon, funeral director for De Leon Funeral Home in Pharr. “At old cemeteries you’ll see a lot of that; sinking, tilting. Back then they didn’t have concrete (liners) like they do now. Most cemeteries require that now, it depends on the cemetery.”
As for an insect problem, that is common at all cemeteries according to Garcia and is a nuisance that is constantly worked on. De Leon said the only sure way to prevent an insect problem at the grave is to have the concrete grave liner or a vault. Garcia said the city is considering the purchase of a compactor to deal with the sinking graves at the city cemetery.
“Sometimes we have quite a few cave-ins,” said Garcia. “We’re now in the cemetery business we’re handling more funeral services. We’ll look into it and we will do whatever we can to correct problems. If it’s not satisfactory to the public, give us a call. I’m not making any excuses, we’ll go out there, give us a chance, give us a call and we’ll look into it. My relatives are out there too; I understand.”
