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PLAINS TWP. — Florence and Edmund Giza thought they would be buried next to each other at the Good Shepherd Memorial Park on Westminster Road.
He went first, in 1996, and Florence selected a shared grave marker with quotes etched under their names.
His said “first tonight,” a humorous reference to his standard reply when she asked him how many drinks he had consumed. She selected her favorite song, “Oh it’s so nice to be with you,” and left only her date of death to be filled in when it was her time.
But the funeral home could not obtain clearance to bury Florence next to Edmund when she died two decades later, in 2016, because the cemetery had become abandoned.
The 6.08-acre cemetery is now officially orphaned with no governmental entities willing to take on the liability and responsibility for its upkeep. It includes a mausoleum, near the Gizas’ earthen plot, that was condemned in 2015.
“For me, it’s heartbreaking,” said Florence’s daughter, Wilkes-Barre resident Monica Carbone, as she placed flowers on Edmund’s grave last week ahead of Memorial Day.
Carbone has set up an online GoFundMe campaign seeking $4,800 in donations to cover legal fees and costs to move and re-bury Edmund, her stepfather, next to Florence in the Back Mountain. As of Friday afternoon, she had raised $540.
A proud veteran
While most of Good Shepherd is now overrun with weeds and untamed bushes, family members have been mowing around some of the remaining graves. Based on military flag holders, more than a dozen veterans are buried there, including Edmund.
An Army veteran, Edmund served during World War II. He often spoke proudly of his service occupying Germany and received four military decorations and citations, Carbone said.
On her visit last week, Carbone shook her head as she peered into the mausoleum interior, which had been pristine and used for a service when Edmund was buried nearby.
Chris Yanaitis, of the Yanaitis Funeral Home Inc. in the township, has put in many volunteer hours with local attorney Jeffrey Kulick developing a court procedure and liability waiver required to remove the deceased from the troubled cemetery.
Yanaitis estimates 60 to 65 bodies are still in the mausoleum, which is structurally unsound and leaking. He and his workers wear respirator masks, glasses and hard hats during removals due to leakage through crypts and mold on the carpet, he said.
“It’s a dangerous place to be. Last time, part of the roof came down,” he said last week. “We’re willing to do this because we’re just trying to get people home.”
Who’s in charge?
Families have blamed much of the cemetery’s decline on the late Larry Deminski, who had identified himself as a pastor of Unity Light of Christ Church in Pittston Township.
Demenski had said his church took over the cemetery from two defunct Laflin-based associations. He claimed someone forged his signature on a bank deposit slip to drain a perpetual care fund that was supposed to cover cemetery maintenance, according to past published reports.
The cemetery’s current owners of record, Lawrence Lee and Viktoria Evstafieva, lost their legal battle to void their purchase of the property from a tax auction.
County officials don’t want to auction the property again because it likely would be unsold and be placed in a repository pool, which means the county would become semi-liable and serve as legal trustee.
In their legal action, Lee and Evstafieva had pointed to an old state law that says county courts may place neglected burial grounds that have become a nuisance under the care of the municipality.
However, township officials have said they don’t have the financial resources to take on such a project, which could eventually include tearing down the mausoleum and relocating those buried inside.
Yanaitis said state legislation is needed to safeguard perpetual care funds for all cemeteries. He also questions what area officials will do if the mausoleum collapses.
“One of these days there’s going to be a catastrophic failure,” he said of the mausoleum. “What is going to be the end game if that happens?”
Carbone said her stepfather and others buried there deserve a “respectful grave,” but it is difficult for many families to come up with the funds.
Before retiring in 1994, Edmund had been employed by the Pocono Trailer Park and previously by Pagnotti Enterprises for many years, his obituary said.
“It will be one of my happiest days when they are together,” Carbone said. “He was so devoted to my mom.”
