Mother's shrine for dead son runs afoul of cemetery rules

YAKIMA — A grieving mother faces $1,500 in fines for refusing to remove toys and other decorations from her 11-year-old son's grave site at Zillah Cemetery.

She was cited three times in two days by Zillah police officers, who cleared dozens of mementos from the grave site and put them in a box, leaving two floral arrangements.

"I'm past shock. I'm past hurt," Cheryl Menard-Wentz said yesterday. "I'm mad."

Zillah Mayor Dan Simmons said the city is sympathetic to grief-stricken families, but there are practical aspects to maintaining a cemetery.

"You can't build a shrine in a cemetery without permission," he said. "We just wanted her to scale it back to a certain degree."

Menard-Wentz's son, Tony, died from complications of asthma Feb. 7. Since then, she has kept a regular vigil at the boy's grave site, which was covered with flowers, flags and toys from family, friends, even strangers.

"I keep it so neat and so clean and so tidy because that's his home now," said Menard-Wentz, 44, of Toppenish.

And because Wednesdays are grass-mowing day at the cemetery in the town 20 miles southeast of Yakima, every Tuesday night she would remove the keepsakes and then replace them the next evening.

But Nov. 1, she said, the city's public-works director insisted she remove the decorations.

Menard-Wentz contends Dick Berry, the public-works director, was rude.

Simmons contends Menard-Wentz was uncooperative when approached by Berry.

In the end, Menard-Wentz and Berry called police. Simmons said an officer asked the woman six times to clear the items.

Menard-Wentz was cited for violating a city ordinance that limits decoration at grave sites. The potential fine: $500. The next day, she was cited two more times.

The city ordinance allows two floral arrangements per grave site that will be removed for mowing. It will be up to the prosecutor to decide what to do.