Cleaning the cemetery

No myself but DH goes when he can. His Dad and a few others are in charge of a small cemetery and it's maintenance. So a few times a year they have a work bee and do they lawn and weeding. Around here the majority are either church members are in charge or the local municipalities. There are some older cemeteries, like the one FIL is part of that was in a rural area that would have had a church/school room to go to many many moons ago so now they remaining family members or local residents are just in charge of the maintenance.

The cemetery where my grandparents are buried, is maintained by the families of those buried there. Every Memorial Day they ask for a donation when people come to visit their loved ones (not mandatory), and they use the money to purchase grass seed, sod, and any other supplies needed to maintain it. They do contract out the mowing. Almost everyone in our family has participated at least once. It’s like a right of passage with the Great Aunts and Uncles.

My maternal grandparent’s bronze plaque has sunk 3-4” and the surrounding dirt likes to flow over it with the freeze/melt, so we go every couple years to clear it off a and neaten it up. My father hangs a wind chime in the nearby tree every few years.

My great+ parents have traditional upright stones and those require less work, so we clear off dead leaves, but they’re under trees and have very little grass.

We only clean the headstones for my late in-laws. They are in a huge, historic cemetary that manages the property.

Yes, but far more than annually. My dad was a caretaker of the local (small rural) cemetery for a few years and my siblings and I had to help. Lucky person got the job of riding lawnmower work, others got to use the push mower between graves, remove/put back the fake flowers, pick up any trash, or, the worst, picking up pine cones. You know those really tall pines that seem to border cemeteries? They create a lot of stupid freaking pine cones.

My dad says if we ever put fake flowers on his grave he will come back to haunt us.

I didn’t vote because the choices don’t quite fit. When I was younger, we used to take my grandmother to the cemetery about once a month to visit my grandfather. We would clean the headstone (dirt and leaves accumulate on top of them) and trim the grass around the headstone. We also brought fresh flowers. After she passed, we went mostly on major holidays to the cemetery. Now, we go maybe only once or twice a year.

ETA - This is a huge cemetery and everyone takes care of their own relative’s headstone. The cemetery management mows the grass and does general upkeep.

My parents were both Marines and are buried at a national cemetery. My husband was cremated so no burial plot there.

I'm not sure what you mean by cleaning. Are you talking wiping down the stones or weeding or...

Cemeteries around here are well maintained by the cemetery. There are often rules about when you must remove wreathes and such

The tradition of cleaning up the cemetery, usually on or around Memorial day is very much a southern tradition.

Decorating of the graves of veterans on Memorial day started in Columbus, MS after the Civil War when local ladies put flowers on the graves of every service member buried at the local cemetery, both northern and southern. (DD's high school's history class has done a big thing on the history of and it was even televised nationally.)

Many families, especially those with older members, still go to the cemetery where their people are buried and clean up/spruce up and lay flowers.

Many of the older, more rural cemeteries don't have "perpetual upkeep" like some of the newer ones. They have Bubba on a riding mower to keep the grass trimmed.

I think this tradition is slowly fading away as the older generations are passing. Younger generations don't always make the time for something like this.

Several years ago the kids stayed with my MIL over the Memorial day weekend and they went with her and her sisters to the family plot (a couple of hours away) to visit /clean/lay flowers. Think it was good for them to see the tradition.

However, that tradition will be stopping since MIL has passed and DH doesn't see a reason to visit the cemetery, because to him the person isn't there and no reason to go. (He doesn't have a problem with putting flags on the graves at the veterans cemetery though.)

I thought you meant the actual scrubbing of head stones in a national cemetery. I’ve done that as part of an Eagle project. A group goes in, sprays a specific cleaner on the marble head stones, and the scrubs off any debris.

The Moravian practices are the only time I have heard of grave cleaning. Apparently they do it annually around Easter. None of my family were buried so no little about cemeteries.