Mount Calvary Catholic Cemetery begins limited grave site reclamation program

Intermountain Catholic

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SALT LAKE CITY — Since its founding in 1898 Mount Calvary Catholic Cemetery has stood as the final resting place of many in the Catholic Community in Utah. Also, it has offered grave sites to the poor and the marginalized of Salt Lake City by merit of the Corporal Works of Mercy.

Today, cemetery officials, with a constant eye to extending the usable life of the cemetery, have located 125 grave sites purchased more than 60 years ago for which there has been no contact information for the buyers or their heirs, nor any communication. Officials now are making every effort to contact the buyers of those grave sites or their heirs in an effort to reclaim the grave sites, making them available to others.

In an article in the Salt Lake Tribune Pamela Manson put it this way "...burial at this sacred site in the Avenues nieghborhood in Salt Lake City was so popular that some families had the bodies of their loved ones transferred there for re-interment, according to early records.

"That popularity also might have led a few to buy more space than they needed. The cemetery now had dozens of gravesites that were purchased between 1898 and 1944, but never used.

"Among those are 125 sites whose buyers left no contact information. So now the Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City, owner of the cemetery, is trying to take back the right to use these grave sites."

Curt Rosentreter, director of cemeteries for the Diocese of Salt Lake City, told the Intermountain Catholic: "Any unused lawn grave may be echanged or returned provided there is no companion, upright, or other marker or monument on or partially on the grave. Each grave site must be inspected and reviewed before a return or exchange can be granted.

"The amount of credit or refund is the greatest of (1) 40 percent of the current selling price for the same type of grave, or (2) 95 percent of the original purchase price of the site."

Third District Judge Sheila McCleve approved a plan by lawyers for Mount Caalvary Catholic Cemetery, Inc., by which newspaper notices are being published and letters are being mailed to the last known addresses of the grave site buyers or their hiers to give them a chance to claim the burial sites.

Those with a claim to a space can exchange or return the sites. "The credit or refund will be 40 percent of the current selling price for the same type of grave or 95 percent of the original purchase price, whichever is greater," said Rosentreter.

"If there is no response to our legal notices, newspaper stories, or letters, Mount Calvary Catholic Cemetery will retain control of the sites," he said.

"Buyers do not have physical ownership of their designated grave sites," Rosentreter explained. "They only have the right to use them for interment. Mount Calvary Catholic Cemetery retains the title to the graves or crypts."

Rosentreter said he has been unable to find any law or guidelines for reclaiming grave sites, so the Mount Calvary Catholic Cemetery Project is a pioneering one.

"I’m sure we’ll be on the program for the next Catholic Cemetery Convention," Rosentreter said. "We’re already getting phone calls from cemeteries in other dioceses who want to know just how this has been done.

Rosentreter is clear that this reclamation project is a limited one. It only applied to grave sites purchased between 1897 and 1944. Grave sites purchases later than 1944 will not be included in the reclamation program.

Mount Calvary Catholic Cemetery has published its legal notices and buyers’ name list in the Salt Lake Tribune, and the Intermountain Catholic.