After pressure from unhappy cemetery visitors, diocese grounds crew working at St. John’s Cemetery today

Catholic Cemeteries grounds workers are at work this morning mowing the grass at St. John’s Cemetery in Riverhead, following at outcry from family members upset by the lack of maintenance at the cemetery this spring.

Three men were at work on the western end of the cemetery early this morning, using lawn tractors and a power trimmer. A fourth man, driving a red Catholic Cemeteries pickup truck, who was observed speaking with the workers and appeared to be a crew foreman, refused to answer any questions.

“I’m not saying anything about anything,” he said, smiling.

Catholic Cemeteries customer service manager Deacon Al Pickford also refused comment.

“I’m not allowed to comment any more after the last go-round,” Pickford said and directed a reporter’s inquiry to the Diocese of Rockville Centre’s communications director, Sean Dolan. Dolan was not in his office, according to a woman who answered the phone in the diocesan communications office this morning; he did not immediately return a call requesting comment.

In an interview last month, Pickford defended the diocese’s clean-up of the grounds of the cemetery, which had been owned and maintained by St. John the Evangelist parish until September 2014. Enforcing established but previously unenforced cemetery rules that bar memorial decorations and perennial plants, Catholic Cemeteries workers picked up and threw away many of the decorations placed on gravesites by family members, as well as some name plates. The cleanup riled the anger of family members who complained they were not given advance warning that the decorations and momentos — some of which had reportedly been there for many years, even decades — were to be removed.

When people began to visit the cemetery for Mother’s Day this weekend, they were incensed to find the grass there had not been mowed.

Others who have been regular visitors this spring say they’d been complaining to the diocese for some time, without result.

“When we complained, we were told the items and plants made it difficult to cut the grass,” Grace Conklin of Riverhead, who lost her son Mark at age 30 in 2012, said in an interview at his gravesite Saturday afternoon. But then they didn’t cut it. She and others began complaining.

“They keep telling me they don’t have the manpower,” Conklin said. “Then they should get the manpower. Why would they take over another cemetery if they didn’t have the people to maintain it?”

The diocese took over management of the parish cemetery in an effort to alleviate St. John the Evangelist’s financial distress, St. John’s pastor Father Larry Duncklee told RiverheadLOCAL last year.

In the absence of formal groundskeeping, Conklin and other regular visitors began to take it upon themselves to mow and trim family members’ plots, creating islands of mowed and neatly trimmed grass amidst overgrown grasses and weeds. Conklin has also been mowing graves adjacent to her son’s plot.

Yesterday, a number of local residents who had read the RiverheadLOCAL story about the uncut grass showed up with mowers and trimmers and set to work on family plots.

Mary and Brendan Egan were mowing and clipping overgrown grass and bushes Sunday morning. Mary Egan found a headstone near Brendan’s uncle’s grave that was completely obscured by overgrown grass and a bush. It was the gravesite of a man killed in Korea in 1952. She found herself moved by the condition of his grave.

“My father fought in Korea, but he came home and raised a family of seven kids,” she said. “This shouldn’t be like this.”

The Egans had planned to clean up their family’s plot but just kept at it, joining forces with Denise and Robert Lucas, George Lenihan and Laura Pearsall, who went to the cemetery yesterday to do the same. Together, they mowed and trimmed nearly one western section of the cemetery in about three hours.

“We said we were going to do yard work today, but we didn’t say where,” Mary Egan said.

Others who came to place flowers on graves for Mother’s Day expressed their anger at the condition of the cemetery grounds.

“This is disgusting,” said Carolyn Smith. “My mom passed away in September. It’s shocking that it would be like this.”

Denise Lucas, founder of Riverhead Move the Animal Shelter, said she and her husband have spoken about forming “watchdog” type committees to keep an eye on particular things, so that they can bring situations that need care to the attention of authorities. “Luke is going to keep an eye on beaches,” she said, using her husband’s nickname. “Maybe we should have another one for the cemeteries in town, to make sure they’re in good shape and there’s no vandalism or littering. Too many things seem to fall through the cracks,” said Lucas, who is seeking the Democratic party nomination for Riverhead Town Board this year. “If people pitch in, we can make a difference.”

Conklin said this morning she is very happy the grounds crew was on site today. “Even if it was a day late and a dollar short, I think they got the point,” Conklin said. “We’re just not going to let it go like this again.”