Cemetery Rules and Regulations
GENERAL:
1. The Association reserves the right to make such changes in the rules and regulations as may be deemed advisable from time to time.
2. Entrance into the Cemetery except through the main entrance is strictly forbidden. All people are welcome to visit the Cemetery from sunrise until sunset, or other times when it may be necessary to change hours of operation. Visitors are expected to be respectful, and shall not walk on the flower beds, graded spaces, or borders. Visitors and animals shall not run at will over the Cemetery. The office of the Association will be open daily, except weekends, and hours will be posted. The office will also close for the Fourth of July, Labor Day, Thanksgiving and the day after Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day, as well as selected staff meeting.
3. Persons within the Cemetery grounds shall use only the avenues, walks, and roads therein, except when it is necessary to walk on the grass to reach their own plots or plots of their relatives. Plots are sacred and involve certain ownership rights and only the owner and the owner’s relatives shall be permitted thereon. Persons shall not wander indiscriminately throughout the Cemetery.
4. Unauthorized vehicles of all kinds must be kept off the grass blocks and shall not be driven at a rate exceeding 15 miles per hour. All persons driving in the Cemetery will be held responsible for damage done by themselves, or by vehicles, or by animals in their charge.
5. All persons are forbidden to pick or remove flowers or plants, to break or injure the trees or shrubs, or to injure or deface any monument, vault, structure or other property. Quiet and sober conduct is essential within the Cemetery grounds. Pets and other animals must always remain on leash. Owners are required to pick up after their animals.
6. The depositing of shells, shepherd’s hooks, glass, stones or lights upon graves and the use of oversized flags, tin cans, tin buckets, or bottles as receptacles for cut flowers in the grass sections is prohibited. Placing items on or near niches and crypts other than in Association approved containers or receptacles is prohibited. Rubbish should be placed in containers provided thereon or in gutters bordering drives.
7. No person shall sell, or offer for sale, any goods, wares, merchandise, or other property in the Cemetery, or about the gates unless employed by or under legal contract with the Association.
RIGHTS AND RESTRICTIONS REGARDING: SPACES, NICHES, CRYPTS OR MEMORIALS
8. All spaces, niches, crypts, and memorials shall be held subject to the charter and bylaws and Rules and Regulations of the Roselawn Cemetery Association, which may be amended from time to time. No spaces, niches or crypts shall be used for any other purpose than as a place of interment for the human dead.
Resale of interment, inurnment, or entombment rights in Roselawn may be permitted but are subject to the prior written approval of the Association, and no conveyance will be recognized, or deemed valid unless the consent of the Association is endorsed thereon. All sales or transfers must be made in the office of the Association and on forms provided by the Association. The following terms and conditions governing sales shall apply:
a. Sales are subject to all rules, regulations and restrictions governing the particular interment, inurnment or entombment right involved.
b. All or an unused portion of a family space may be sold or transferred by the original owner(s) only. Any heirs or beneficiaries to an original owner inherit only the right to use the space(s) and not the right to sell or transfer same. However, the Association may at their sole discretion authorize the buyback of property at the original cost.
c. A fee determined by the Association will be charged on all transfers or sales.
The Association reserves the right to approve all sales and transfers, and no interment, inurnment or entombment rights may be resold for more than the Association sells like property in the same block. Speculation is strictly prohibited.
9. The records kept at the office of the Association are the only evidence of ownership rights recognized. Private sales or transfers not approved by the Association and not kept for the record at the Association will not be recognized by the Association.
10. Until all charges due the Association are paid, interments, inurnments and entombments are generally not permitted in any space, niche, or crypt. If the interment, inurnment or entombment is permitted before the space, niche or crypt is fully paid for, the Association retains the right of ownership in the space, niche, or crypt, and in case the party purchasing the same fails to pay the full amount due thereon, the Association may, waiting a reasonable time and at its discretion, proceed to remove the bodies or cremated remains buried, inurned or entombed therein and relocate the same to some other suitable place in the grounds, or to the section set aside for single graves, or to a smaller space or to another niche or crypt, or may set-off a part of the original space, niche or crypt for the interment, inurement or entombment, and such place of interment, inurnment or entombment shall be considered full value for all money paid on the space, niche or crypt purchased.
11. The Association does not provide for the care of private mausoleums, monuments, grave markers, or any decorative planting, which may be placed on lot spaces. The Association’s endowment care includes watering and mowing the lawn and the reasonable care of trees, avenues and maintenance of the building housing Roselawn’s Garden Mausoleum.
12. The Association will not provide endowment care for any grave space in the indigent or free grave section until purchase price thereon shall have been paid.
13. Owners of interment, inurnment or entombment rights may have work done on their spaces, niches, or crypts, consistent with the rules and regulations, by making arrangements with the Association. Employees of the Association are not permitted to do work for such owners without approval from the Association. Owners of interment rights or other persons wishing to do planting or other work on the grounds must first obtain permission from the Association.
14. The Association’s obligation to all owners of interment, inurnment or entombment rights is to keep the Cemetery as neat and well-cared for as possible; therefore, flowers and artificial decorations will be permitted in the Cemetery only in approved vases or containers installed by the Cemetery. The following rules apply with respect to flowers and decorations:
a. The Association will remove all decorations from mausoleums, niches, blocks, tiers, spaces, plots and graves during the months of February, May, July, and September, beginning on the first day of those months and extending throughout the month, each year. Owners should remove wanted items, and not place new items until the scheduled removal has been completed in the mausoleums, niches, blocks, tiers, and spaces. New flowers in approved vases and containers installed by the Cemetery will be left undisturbed by the Association.
b. Plants and plantings on individual grave sites are the responsibility of the owners and their relatives. The Cemetery will do everything in its power to protect said plantings but assumes no responsibility in case of accidental damage or loss for whatever reason.
15. To prevent injury to adjoining spaces and to preserve the beauty of the grounds, no trees, shrubs, evergreens, or flowers shall be planted on spaces, nor shall any existing trees, shrubs or evergreens be cut down, removed, or trimmed without the express written permission of the Association. The Association reserves the right to remove from any space, at the expense of the owner, all trees, shrubs, evergreens, and plant life that, in the sole opinion of the Association, may be diseased or unsightly, or infringe on other plots or Association property.
16. Owners and their relatives shall keep in good repair any structure or object which may be placed in their spaces. Failure to do so will cause the Association to repair some at the expense of the owner or to have some removed from the space. No plot or grave shall be defined by fence, railing, coping, hedge, trees, shrubs, embankments or depressions. The Association may prohibit or remove from plots, wire or trellis work, chairs, settees, vases, or other structures or objects that may be considered objectionable by the management or Directors of the Association in their sole and absolute discretion.
17. The Association has no desire to interfere with the property owners regarding the style of their improvements, but in respect to all owners, the Association reserves the right to prevent the erection of any structure or object, which in its sole and absolute discretion it shall deem injurious to the general good appearance of the Cemetery and particularly of adjoining plots. We will trim or remove anything that impedes our workers.
18. Only one monument will be permitted in a space and shall be so located that its center shall be on the center lines of the space divided lengthwise and at a uniform depth from the street with other monuments in the section. Markers will be permitted at the head of each grave, provided they do not exceed 24 inches in height and subject to special marker restrictions in effect on certain blocks. (Refer to attorney) No footstones for graves will be allowed. The Association reserves the right to prohibit the placing of any monument, marker, or shrubbery upon a space until the full amount due the Association is paid.
19. The Association will not allow a permanent marker to be placed on any grave in the indigent or free grave section until purchase price shall have been paid in full.
20. No monument or grave marker will be admitted to the Cemetery when made of other materials than granite, marble or bronze. No monument or grave marker will be admitted, which is cut in imitation of any animal or any grotesque figure.
21. In no instance will permission be given to erect vaults or tombs as a receptacle for bodies above the ground in localities where they will be objectionable or injurious to surrounding spaces. Mausoleums and vaults may be built only where design and location have been approved in writing by the Association. The plans and specifications must be submitted to the Association for approval before the work is begun.
22. Cutting additional names or letters on monuments or headstones or other work, after the same has been placed in position, will require written authority from the owner. The Association will not be responsible for errors of lettering on monuments that were not corrected by the family on the “design proof.”
23. No monuments of any kind will be admitted to the Cemetery, or foundations built for same, until the foundation order has been received and approved by the Association. All foundations will be constructed by the Association, except as noted in paragraph #36, at the expense of the firm or person erecting the monument. The expense of the foundation shall be determined by the schedule of foundation charges in effect and kept at the office of the Association. Foundations will be required for all monuments and markers of every description. At least 15 days’ notice must be given to the Association before it will begin to construct a foundation. The character of the ground, the situation of the mausoleum, monument, or marker on the space, and the size determines the depth of the foundation. The grade of all spaces shall be determined by the Association.
24. Thin slabs for headstones are prohibited. Markers for graves, when made of granite shall not be less than eight inches thick, and when made of marble, shall be not less than six inches thick, unless dimensions are necessary for duplication of existing markers on the space. (Tabled) When a marker is of two pieces (a die & base), the die shall not be less than six inches thick. No marker, stone and foundation or finish wash, shall exceed the width of the grave or graves it is intended to mark. All vases shall be set on flagging. Corner posts shall not be less than four inches square, and not less than four inches in depth, dressed on all sides and shall be set flush with the ground. Steps shall be granite, in one piece, and not less than three feet long by sixteen inches wide.
25. Planks must be provided for unloading stonework and for rolling it on the paths, gutters or grass. Monument firms and owners will be held responsible for any damage done by them to other monuments, grass, trees, or other objects in the Cemetery, and are subject to the Rules and Regulations, and the approval and direction of the Association. Persons engaged in erecting monuments or other structures are not permitted to scatter material over adjacent spaces, or to leave the same longer than is necessary. They are required to set their work as soon as possible after entering the Cemetery.
26. Monument firms and others are prohibited from placing their names, so as to be visible on any work.
INTERMENTS
27. No interment, entombment, inurnment, or scattering shall be permitted upon any space, niche, or crypt without the express written authorization of the Association. Furthermore, the Association requires that all interments, entombments, inurnments, or scatterings be recorded, and fees for such recording be paid per Association policy.
28. When graves are to be opened, the Association must, in conformity with the law, obtain a permit from the City Health Office. Graves will be opened only upon order of the Association or by direction of law enforcement or court order. NO interment or dis-interment will be permitted without such an order. No order for grave openings will be issued until a properly executed “Authorization to Open Grave”, executed by the owner of the interment rights, the next of kin or in the absence of heirs, the family representative, has been received by Roselawn Cemetery Association. The “Authorization to Open Grave” shall require that the grave site be visually inspected by the owner of the right of interments, the next of kin of the owner of the right of Interment or the family representative. Notice should be given so as to allow a minimum of one business day for the work.
29. Unless in the case of the death from contagious diseases where immediate interments are ordered by the health authorities, no interments will be made in Roselawn on Sundays, Memorial Day, Thanksgiving Day, Labor Day, Christmas, New Year’s Day, and the Fourth of July.
30. There shall be no more than two interments per grave space, with the exception of those spaces established by the Board as multiple interment spaces. Two sets of cremated remains are allowed to be interred in a single grave. For certain areas there shall be a maximum of one inurnment per niche space.
31. All interments will be subject to the schedule of charges on file in the office of the Association.
32. Satisfactory evidence of ownership must be shown before the Association can open a grave. The simple production of a certificate may not be sufficient. See paragraph 9 above.
33. The Rules and Regulations shall be applicable to all spaces, niches, crypts, memorials, and gardens in Roselawn Cemetery.
34. Funerals held within the Cemetery grounds shall always be subject to the Rules and Regulations and control of the Association.
35. Cremated remains may be buried in one-half of an adult grave space or in a baby grave space, but not at the foot of an existing grave or between two existing graves.
36. Third-party installation of monument foundations is permitted by following the procedures as set forth by the Association and subject to paragraph 24 above. Those procedures and regulations will be provided to all who wish to install foundations.
37. All entombments in the Community or Garden Mausoleums require that the deceased be embalmed. The use of 20-gauge steel caskets or thicker is recommended. The use of wooden caskets in mausoleums is strongly discouraged and requires a written waiver signed prior to interment by the owner of the right of interment, the next of kin of the owner of the right of interment or the family representative.
These Rules & Regulations were approved by the Roselawn Cemetery Association Board of Directors at the July 19, 2023 meeting, and will be effective immediately.