Gary Pace has been the Hoytsville Cemetery sextant since 1973 and says there are 73 burial plots left.
“We do not own a back hoe. I just have to pick out somebody [to dig graves]… I've used five people over the 50-something years I've been there,” he said at the July 8 Summit County Council meeting.
Maintaining eastern Summit County’s pioneer-era burial grounds falls to volunteers on the county’s least-funded government boards.
During July 8 interviews for seats on the Hoytsville Cemetery Maintenance District board, County Councilmember Tonja Hanson said she’s read social media users lamenting the state of the graveyard.
She asked prospective board members if the district has enough money. Gary's wife, Sharon Pace, responded that the “biggest problem” — since the cemetery is non-perptual care — is some families don't maintain their lots.
The majority of rural Summit County cemeteries are not perpetual care, meaning cemetery staff do not maintain individual gravesites.
Of all the small eastside cemetery districts, Hoytsville’s annual budget is the smallest at just $5,000.
They get money by selling plots, too. Board members spend it on herbicide and compensating gravediggers.
Gale Pace said they’ve been saving up to buy more land.
“We're pretty solvent. We got money that we could purchase ground, if we could negotiate,” he said. “Because there [are] lots of burials going to happen with all these subdivisions going in.”
The 7-acre cemetery was founded in 1893 just east of Hoytsville Road near Creamery Lane. It abuts 27 acres controlled by Larry H. Miller Real Estate and Ivory Homes.
Cemetery board members say they can’t afford to buy some of that land at the going market rate, as eastern Summit County grows ever more expensive.
Ivory Homes advertises new homes in the Red Hill community north on Hoytsville Road starting at $550,000.
In those parts, the affordable housing debate is often recast in terms of “generational housing,” making sure children can stay in Summit County if they so choose.
Hanson, who lives in Coalville, observed that the non-perpetual care model relies on families not moving away.
“To your point about people not taking care of their lots — next to my grandparents' lots is my grandmother's brother and his wife and a daughter,” she said. “They have no family around here to take care of that lot.”
Gale Pace’s advice to other cemetery caretakers is to “get a thick skin.”
“Because people go in there and they see the lots that aren't kept up,” he said. “They get mad at you, and they chew your butt out, because you don't take care of it the way they think it should be taken care of.”
Volunteers at the Wanship Cemetery, which flooded just before Pioneer Day, report similar complaints. Wanship is also non-perpetual care, constrained by a small tax base and a lack of water rights.
But the cemetery boards aren’t pursuing tax increases right now.
The county council appointed Gary, Sharon and Gale Pace to the cemetery board July 8. They also appointed Wesley Pace and Ken Mitchell.
Those five were the only ones who applied.
Summit County is a financial supporter of KPCW.
