Towns grapple with tidying forsaken cemeteries

MONTVILLE, Conn. (AP) Almost 125 years ago, 15-month-old Emma Wheeler was laid to rest within sight of her family's church near a stone wall in a New England cemetery.
The church is now long gone, and the cemetery is abandoned. Over time, the toddler's grave and the rest of the Montville burial grounds became obscured by shoulder-high branches, brambles and fern fronds.
It's a scene mirrored at an untold number of abandoned cemeteries nationwide, leaving state and local governments under pressure from residents to clean up the burial grounds out of respect for the dead — without imposing more costs on the living. Continued

Image: Ceder Hill Cemetery, Havre de Grace, MD.