Visitors to Grand View Memorial Park ask a lot of questions each week. Here's a few that I can report answers on at this time:
Will Grand View be open during the holidays?
Yes!
Grand View Volunteers are prepared to continue opening the gates every Sunday for visitations until the cemetery is sold, and that includes Christmas Day on Sunday, December 25 and New Year's Day on Sunday, January 1.
If you'd like to visit for Thanksgiving (observed Thursday, November 24) or Armenian Christmas (observed Friday, January 6) please plan to do so on the Sunday before or after those holidays.
Visitation hours each Sunday are from 12 noon until 4:00 p.m. Gates are closed and visitors inside the park are given a 15 minute courtesy alert at 3:45 p.m. in order to meet the 4:00 p.m. closing. Please plan your arrival and departure times accordingly.
When will Grand View be sold and resume normal operations?
The million dollar question! According to cemetery representative, attorney David Baum, "Grand View is in discussions with potential buyers and will provide updates in the coming weeks regarding the sale of the cemetery and restoration of full time visitations and regular business operations. We would like to take this opportunity to thank all the people who have volunteered to make the current openings possible."
Stay tuned to this blog for developments.
A loved one has passed away, can they be buried at Grand View these days?
Yes, but only if you already purchased burial rights to a plot here.
According to David Baum, "Grand View is entering its fifth year of restricted operations. While still prohibited from selling new burial sites, Grand View will continue to honor existing contracts. Burial services are now being performed pursuant to court order. This procedure will continue until a new owner takes over operation of the cemetery."
If you have a question about burial rights, contact authorized representatives David Baum (310-990-3660, david.baum@dbaumlaw.com) or Reg Duran (714-473-3323, accduran@msn.com) for more detailed guidance and information.
Why are so many of the flat gravesite markers covered in grass?
The new class action-funded watering system has been in place for five months, which means the grass is growing quite well, and that includes over many flat markers in each section.
Cemetery officials have arranged for a crew to cut the lawns with mowers but keeping markers groomed has obviously been a challenge under current operating conditions. Cemetery representatives tell me that they are working on a solution to this problem, and when that plan is finalized I will report on it here.
In the meantime, visitors and volunteers alike have been bringing their own gardening tools each Sunday to uncover and trim markers manually. Recommended tools include weedwhackers, clippers, hand shovels and scrub brushes. Water for washing markers is available in the blue tubs outside the Administration Office.
Here's a question (?) from the electronic mail bag, regarding individual memorial pages for Grand View burials on Findagrave.com:
"If you are going to give the information of the gravesite, the least you can do is give the dates. For [E.E.Z.], the dates are on the headstone." [Signed] Her granddaughter, [A. S.]
Grandaughter, it sounds like you're wondering why many of the nearly 40,000 memorial pages on Findagrave.com, entered by dedicated volunteers, don't provide complete information, and the least I can do is give you the inside scoop.
The Findagrave project is an on-going team effort that got a jumpstart in 2010 using information from a variety of incomplete sources. As volunteers receive specific information, they spend hours layering it in, memorial by memorial.
Because none of the base sources included birth and death dates, the only current way to add that data is to physically check each and every burial record, or, making a note of it when a marker is cleaned and photographed.
This is an adhoc operation and if a loved one's dates are not available yet, please know it's not because volunteers are asleep at the wheel.
I'd like to volunteer my time helping out at Grand View. What do you need and how do I sign up?
Grand View is currently accepting volunteers to work each Sunday in the office assisting families find grave locations, assisting families care for grave sites, picking up garbage, handing out informational flyers from time to time, trimming markers, fulfilling Findagrave.com requests and other miscellaneous projects.
Please contact David Baum (310-990-3660, david.baum@dbaumlaw.com) if you would like to become a Grand View Volunteer.
Do you have questions you'd like answered about Grand View Memorial Park? Submit them to me at lisa.burks@yahoo.com and I'll seek out the answers for you.
