I don't understand why

I joined the Ohio Genealogical Society this past week. Since so many of my ancestors migrated there before moving on, I felt it was a worthwhile thing to do.

One of the areas I can view now is the list of cemeteries in the various counties. They don't have the names of those buried there, but at least there's a list of the names of the cemeteries by county, or the ones they are aware of. When we consider there have been ancestors in Ohio in the 1700s that's a lot of burials and many of them, especially the earlier ones, weren't done in what we call proper cemeteries today.

However, it saddens me when I see the list of cemeteries and the ones where not only are all the monuments gone, some from natural wearing and some through destruction, but where they believe all the remains have been destroyed, too.

Why? Why would someone do that? I don't get it.

Everyone of us will become remains at some point. Every last one of us. What type of person has such disregard for the remains of those who have passed on.

I'm not talking about someone who now owns land along the Sante Fe Trail and digs up an unmarked grave. I'm talking about people who go into known cemeteries and destroys not only the markers, but the remains of our ancestors.

How can you be so disrespectful?

Not all of the destruction is done out of malice. Some of it is done for profit. Someone buys some land where there's a family cemetery and they bulldoze the markers and everything else so they can plant it to crops. Really? You can't let those ten or twenty people rest in peace? That small amount of space will not make a difference in your survival. But it makes all the difference in how you'll be viewed by others and how your own family will view the sanctity of your own remains.

Basically, our respect or lack of respect for those that are now gone reflect the same respect we show for those who are with us now. Not only do we need to treat their remains with respect, but the lives they lived. You don't want to make up stories about their lives any more than you'd want to dig up their remains and scatter them about.

I don't think I'll ever live long enough to understand the thought process of someone who will willingly go into a cemetery and destroy the markers and the remains though.