They have never once gotten a thank you from any of the 26,000 people they care for on a bi-weekly basis.
The seven staff in Cemetery Operations handles the maintenance and grounds keeping for four cemeteries, the Plant City Police Department pistol range, and the location of the old YMCA on East Cherry Street; and of course, digging, and grave site set up. To accomplish their work on the ground and under it, they have six stand-up mowers, three gators, one backhoe, and one dumper. In addition, this Department takes care of coordinating burials, sales of cemetery plots, and inquiries from people trying to find where ancestors are buried. “We have a lot with interaction with people,” said Superintendent Greg Novak.
Most of the tasks of Cemetery Operations are labor-intensive. The team mows all of the property every two weeks, but there are tens of thousands of places that a mower won’t reach, so weed eating takes much of the grounds-keeping time. The Department also power washes vault lids, and sprays headstones with a chemical that kills lichens and moss. “It takes a certain type of person to commit to doing this position,” Novak commented. “Everybody should have a level of ‘this is a personal thing,’ and still be able to separate our job from the personal aspect of it.”
Record keeping has been in place for 100 years, but the grounds have been used as cemeteries since the mid-1800s. Burial records are sketchy from that long ago. For accuracy in record keeping, Cemetery Operations uses a modern program called Plot Box that maintains a comprehensive list of the sites. “My motto for cemetery work is, you honor the past, celebrate the present, and plan for the future,” Novak said. Plot Box has mapped the four cemeteries using aerial photography. The specifics about the burial and the person have been entered into the system, so it can be used to make sure all is in order for future reference.
“The people that we maintain for, that we care for, deserve the respect and the honor of having that done,” Novak said. “This job isn’t about me. It’s about everybody that’s buried here.” The cemeteries are not affiliated with any denomination. The Garden of Peace cemetery was once church funded, but the City of Plant City took over maintenance. Burial plots are deeded property. Taxes and perpetual care are included in the up-front cost—along with the assurance this is the one piece of land the government can never take away from the owner for unpaid taxes.
You would think, given that their residents aren’t very active, that Cemetery Operations wouldn’t run into a lot of problems—but they do. Sometimes people will back their cars into headstones and knock them over. Also, this year, some kids pushed over monuments, and smashed one headstone on a nearby road. Different vandals have burned small American flags placed in honor of the deceased. “Unfortunately, they don’t realize who they are affecting—the lives that they are disrespecting,” Novak said.
Another problem is previous burials. In the past, sometimes those who couldn’t afford to pay to have a loved one buried would do so in secrecy under the cover of night. Under the radar and under the ground, the burial was never recorded. So, on occasion, after a plot is sold and the Department digs the grave, they will find someone unknown has already been laid there.
A different sort of issue is, due to the high water table in the area, sometimes a grave cannot be dug down to six feet, and Cemetery Operations has to settle for a depth of five—or even four—feet. This difficulty with the high water table is complicated by rainy season, because the grave will flood when it is being dug. However, there always must be at least one foot of soil above the grave vault.
The cemetery holdings will soon need to be expanded, because there are currently only 325 remaining plots.