Neglected Cranston cemetery is looking better, but volunteers say they need more help

CRANSTON – The only sound in the Oakland Cemetery in Cranston on a recent Thursday was the engine of a small mower as it cut through swaths of knee-high grass.

Barry Tasca, in a cut-off shirt and shorts, sweat running down his face, pushed the mower through the tall grass while his wife, Lisa, combed through debris piles and next to gravesites, looking for discarded glass prayer candles and sun-bleached and wind-tossed artificial flowers, beer bottles and cans.

The Tascas are part of a group of volunteers trying to do basic upkeep in the sprawling private cemetery a year after families complained of gravestones buried in trash and grass so tall and thick as to be impassable. Recent rains have made the vegetation grow much quicker.

The husband and wife "adopted" one of the 17 quadrants in the cemetery across from Roger Williams Park and next to an area adopted and mowed by Paul Tognetti, a member of the Cranston Historical Cemeteries Commission. They used the latest map they could find, from 1923, to divide up territory, while about 50 Armenian plots behind the abandoned mausoleum are taken care of by their countrymen.

Cleanup effort started last year after complaints

Bagged trash and small piles of loose trash in shaded corners of the cemetery are still there. Many graves are still overgrown. Even modern graves are neglected, the artificial flowers once adorning their sides bleached white with a hint of the yellow or pink they once were.

The sheer volume of refuse at the cemetery, which continues to see a trickle of new burials, is far less than it was a year ago, when families reached out to The Providence Journal to complain about gravestones buried under piles of trash.

The efforts to clean up the cemetery have been led by Cranston Pastor Russell Farmer who started last year after trying to find volunteer work for his congregation, and has been aided by the Cranston Historical Cemeteries Commission.

When Farmer led the first cleanup of the cemetery of the year in April, he found one of the roads blocked by a fallen tree. A group of volunteers from the Iglesia Faro de Salvacion congregation that uses his Gateway Pentecostal Fellowship building came out to the cemetery armed with chain saws and cleared the road. Remnants of the tree, overgrown with vines, remain, probably covering headstones.

More: Buried in trash: Cranston cemetery has become an illegal dumping ground. What can be done?

Call for volunteers to do major cleanup of cemetery on Sept. 9

After leading cleanup efforts in August last year, Farmer learned that the height of the summer heat is a terrible time to try to bag trash, cut down weeds and mow grass.

Farmer is looking for volunteers for the next cleanup effort, starting at 9 a.m. on Sept. 9.

Trucks would be helpful in moving bags of trash and brush to the front of the cemetery, and volunteers are encouraged to bring gloves and any garden implements they would be willing to use.

Cranston Historic Cemeteries Commission member John Hill said he keeps a box of gloves in his car, ready for the next cleanup effort. Hill is a former Providence Journal reporter.

Volunteers seek help from professionals to remove fallen tree

Farmer, whose church is a tax-exempt nonprofit, said he is hoping to find a tree-removal company willing to take out the fallen tree, an estimated $2,500 job, and chip the piles of brush that accumulate along the side of the roads.

"It wouldn't take more than an hour," he said.

City of Cranston continues to help out

Farmer said Cranston city employees deserve credit for taking out the 103 bags of trash and yard debris that volunteers have brought to the front of the property along Broad Street the second time they came to clean up in April.

"We're making progress, gaining credibility," Hill said.

The snowball effect works both ways

Each time someone goes out and works to clean, to mow, to landscape, it brings more attention to the neglected cemetery, Hill said.

Seeing people working, and seeing the patchwork of mowed and neglected areas, makes people with loved ones in the cemetery more likely and more willing to step up themselves, Hill said.

The snowball effect works in the negative too, making it easier to throw trash into piles in the cemetery.

A few errant plastic flowers, a little brush, a used prayer candle, that's how a new trash pile starts, Hill said.

"You can stop it with that first person," he said.

Cemetery is a history of Rhode Island's immigrants

Founded in 1847, the 11-acre Oakland Cemetery is a catalog of immigration into Rhode Island, each successive generation of immigrants interred within its confines – the Irish, Italians, Poles, Portuguese and Armenians – while most of the recent interments have been of people of Spanish-speaking heritage.

The most recent graves light up at night, adorned with solar lights, Hill said.

Lawsuit over trust money stalled for two years

In July 2022, The Providence Journal reported on a lawsuit filed by cemetery representatives in 2021 against Bank of America for allegedly charging exorbitant fees on the money saved in a trust account intended for maintenance of the cemetery.

Read the lawsuit: Oakland Cemetery Corporation vs. Bank of America

Since then, nothing has happened in the case.

How to help: Cemetery cleanup

When: 9 a.m., Sept. 9

Where: Oakland Cemetery, 1569 Broad St., Cranston

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Reach reporter Wheeler Cowperthwaite at wcowperthwaite@providencejournal.com or follow him on Twitter @WheelerReporter.

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Cleanup day planned for Oakland Cemetery in Cranston: How to help