Grave Markers

D.W. of New York wrote us about one of our columns. It was about a Confederate soldier’s grave marker made for the United Daughters of the Confederacy.

“You missed a great opportunity to help put a stop to the ‘grave robbing’ that seems to be the thing to do today. When someone wrote to you about a Confederate grave marker, it should have been obvious it was stolen off the grave.

“My Revolutionary War ancestor had a tombstone, ‘Isiah Whitman – Soldier of the Revolution’ which disappeared from his grave. A ‘historian’ in the Mohawk Valley was caught stealing the marble tombstones, making tables from them and selling them … and one enterprising thief was caught with his backyard filled with antique cemetery urns.

“Please do not promote the collecting, buying or selling of valuable memorials. Thanks.”

We did miss the opportunity to reiterate a message we have written before, that “… there are some things that should not be collected. Monuments, statues and markers placed in cemeteries or parks to remember the dead should never be removed and sold. It is against the law in most states.” We appreciate the letter that points out that stealing grave markers is despicable, disrespectful and illegal.