"I find it sad because this has never happened and my dad's been here 20 years," said Connie Alvey, of Lebanon, Ill., about the recent removal of flowers and keepsakes from headstones at the College Hill Cemetery on Wednesday, March 12, 2025, in Lebanon, Ill.
LEBANON, Ill. — Janet Carthy thinks she is one of the first people who noticed what happened at College Hill Cemetery. She was driving by on March 6 when she saw Lebanon city workers loading shepherd’s hooks into the back of a truck.
She visits her husband’s grave two or three times a week, and she had never seen anything like that.
Carthy decided to check out the grave site. The bouquets she had arranged on both ends of the double headstone were gone. So was a stone she had engraved with the dates of her husband’s birth and death.
She looked around, confused.
“The cemetery was bare,†Carthy said. “I thought, ‘I don’t get it.’â€
The city-owned College Hill Cemetery, which sits in the shadow of McKendree University, held its first burial four years before Lebanon was officially founded in 1814. More than 6,000 people are buried there, surpassing the town’s population by about 1,500.
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The cemetery, family members say, was an unexpectedly bright place to be. Angel sculptures and bird ornaments watched over many of the graves. Flowers hung from shepherd’s hooks and bloomed out of vases attached to headstones. Balloons bobbed over the granite slabs to commemorate special days.
But the first week in March, the cemetery was stripped clean. And the loved ones of the people buried there are furious.
“It’s theft. They desecrated a grave,†Carthy said.
Over the next couple of days, she spent hours scouring dumpsters to salvage crosses, American flags and plaques that memorialized volunteer firefighters. That weekend, she turned to Facebook to try to find the items’ owners and learned she wasn’t the only one who was shocked and angry.
Residents shared photos and offered support on social media. Many phoned city leaders to vent. At least one man showed up on an alderperson’s doorstep.
Last week, the regularly scheduled Lebanon City Council meeting was overflowing. Twenty-two people were allowed inside the small meeting room in City Hall, while about the same number waited outside, on the sidewalk along St. Louis Street. Scores more connected via Zoom.
Confusion and miscommunication among city leaders, and an ordinance in need of an update, were pointed to as culprits.
Before the public comments began, the streets department superintendent, Cody Terry, who led the cleanup crew, apologized.
“There was a breakdown in communication at all levels,†Terry said. “I was doing the job I was told I was supposed to do.â€
Mayor Cheri Wright also apologized. Later, in an interview, she said she was aware of the cleanup but “was not advised†on what it would entail.
“I felt really, really bad for those people,†she said.
Headstones sit unadorned on Wednesday, March 12, 2025, at College Hill Cemetery in Lebanon, Ill. City crews removed flowers, memorial stones, keepsakes and trinkets that covered many of the headstones.
‘Everybody’s fault’
In the past, old flowers and out-of-date holiday decor were the only items that would get thrown out by the grounds crew. Families would have cleared off their keepsakes if they had known, they said.
Ahead of the recent cleanup, notices were posted in two local newspapers: the O’Fallon Weekly and the Mascoutah Herald.
Decorations would need to be taken down by March 1, the notices read.
“After that day, all items will be removed and discarded by the city,†they warned.
At the city council meeting, about a dozen people recounted rituals they had developed, sometimes over decades, that made them feel the deceased were still part of their lives. Some would collect rocks during their travels to lay atop headstones. Others taped down notes or prayer cards. One man had gotten permission to install a small bench to sit at his late wife’s side.
Kimberlee Kasperzick has multiple relatives at College Hill.
“You will not stop me from decorating those graves,†she told the council.
A few residents said Terry, the streets department chief, was unfairly being scapegoated.
“The aldermen have thrown their employees under the bus,†one woman commented.
In an interview, Alderperson George Fero said the city had made a mistake that couldn’t be pinned on any one person.
“It was everybody’s fault,†he said.
A bouquet of flowers sits atop a headstone on Wednesday, March 12, 2025, at College Hill Cemetery in Lebanon, Ill., after a city crew removed mementos and other items left family members to adorn grave sites.
In the past, the city has contracted out cemetery cleanups — costing between $75,000 and $100,000 annually — but officials decided about a year ago that the Department of Streets, Alleys and Cemetery could handle it.
Last month, Terry asked what should be included in the cleanout. Fero gave the cemetery ordinance a cursory look, he said, and answered: “Probably everything that shouldn’t be there.â€
The ordinance, written in 1978, calls for bouquets to be removed in the days prior to Easter Sunday, Memorial Day and the Fourth of July. It forbids the use of glass containers, cans, boxes and buckets to hold flowers.
No other objects are specifically mentioned.
Fero said he was as surprised as anyone about the extent of what was purged.
“They really cleaned,†he said. “Except they went too far in a few circumstances.â€
Many residents have directed their ire at Fero, who is running for mayor.
Other officials said they knew nothing about the process or what was in the ordinance.
Missing angel
In the wake of the botched cleanup, city leaders have said they would study a revision of the cemetery ordinance. They also pledged to find ways to better inform people of events at College Hill.
Carthy, who hit up the dumpsters last week, has been able to return a few trinkets to families, including a placard to Victoria Cook, who lost her 11-year-old daughter to a brain tumor.
Connie Alvey bows her head in front of the graves of her father and granddaughters on Wednesday, March 12, 2025, at College Hill Cemetery in Lebanon, Ill.
The grounds crew didn’t throw away everything, the mayor said, and the city is holding shepherd’s hooks and cement sculptures in a shed on the cemetery property for people who want to claim them.
But an angel figurine watching over Maelynn Schwab’s grave is nowhere to be located. Maelynn died at birth. She would have turned 6 last Monday, the day of the city council meeting.
Her mother, Bridgette Schwab, didn’t know if she would be able to speak at the meeting. But ultimately, she decided she wanted city leaders to understand what people like her were feeling.
“A cemetery is supposed to be a sacred place. It doesn’t matter if they lived one day or 100 years,†she told the officials. “What is done cannot be undone.â€
Later, in an interview, she reflected on the pain of seeing the mementos swept away.
“It felt like, when they threw everything away, like our loved ones were trash,†she said. “It brought me back to when we lost our daughter.â€
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