Park Lawn Cemetery.
A flower arrangement sits atop a grave stone at Park Lawn Cemetary. It’s been reported that another flower arrangement at the same cemetary was recently vandalized.
Staff photo/MARY GAUDET
Judy Keeler can't believe someone would exercise such "baseless hatred" as to deliberately cut the buds off a dozen roses she and her 87-year-old mother placed at her father's Etobicoke grave.
The women left the flowers at his grave at Park Lawn Cemetery on Saturday, Jan. 21. Keeler last saw the roses a week later. The next day, a Sunday, someone had cleanly cut the rosebuds off, leaving behind the flowerless stems still tied with ribbon.
"It's very low. It's beyond the pale," Keeler said Tuesday, still disturbed by the incident. "Why would anyone do such a thing? It's such disrespect for the dead. It's also so petty. It's not the way you create a civilized society."
His grave is in Section 'D' near an open gate with easy access to Bloor Street West near Prince Edward Drive South.
At first, Keeler believed the theft to be the work of an animal, perhaps a deer. But the bouquet had not been disturbed. On closer examination, it appeared someone had taken a pen knife or box cutter to remove the rosebuds.
Keeler reported the large cemetery is regularly busy, with families often laying fresh flowers.
"If you saw somebody going over and playing with flowers at somebody's grave, you wouldn't think they were up to something bad. You wouldn't interfere. It's private when you go to spend time at the cemetery," she said.
Prior to the theft, Keeler said her instincts told her to remove three wreaths made by her mother the pair placed on his grave each year before Christmas.
"Right after Christmas I said, 'Mommy, I think we should go down and bring them home. I'm really afraid that because they're so good looking, that they're going to disappear.' The reality is, when people go to put things at a grave, they don't expect someone is going to vandalize it."
Park Lawn Cemetery management said they are unaware of any flower thefts from the cemetery. Keeler had not yet formally filed a complaint with cemetery administrators when interviewed by The Guardian.
"I haven't heard about this. We've had no complaints," Rob Holloway, regional manager with Park Lawn Company Limited said Wednesday.
Holloway confirmed the large cemetery has surveillance cameras, mounted outside the cemetery office and outside the garage and mausoleum: "I'm not aware of a cemetery anywhere in the country that has (surveillance) cameras out on grounds. Park Lawn (Cemetery) is 75 acres. It's just too much area to cover."
In 2006, a woman and her father reported to a Toronto daily newspaper they had witnessed two women believed to be in their 50s fill a van with flowers from fresh grave sites, including her mother's at Union Cemetery in Oshawa.
Some arrangements were stolen outright, while the thieves also targeted more expensive fresh flowers such as roses and lilies and deliberately cut the buds from the stems.
Durham Regional Police launched an investigation and asked the public for assistance.
Contacted Wednesday, police reported they are not aware of any arrests made in the case.