Grand View Memorial Park and Crematory is a historic cemetery and funeral home located in Glendale, California, in the United States. Established in 1884 as Glendale Cemetery, it changed its name to Grand View Memorial Park in 1919. This cemetery was the focus of a scandal that began in 2005, during which the operators were accused of leaving thousands of cremated remains unburied. New owners changed its name to Grand View Memorial Park and Crematory in 2015 and began a restoration of the property. Its subsidiary neighbor is Abbott and Hast Mortuary.https://www.abbotthast.com
Founding and first 90 years
The cemetery was founded in 1884, and was the only cemetery in the area until Forest Lawn Memorial Park was constructed in 1906. The site was heavily wooded, and its 4 percent grade provided good drainage.
The burial ground was purchased by local builder Len C. Davis in 1919 and incorporated in late December with capital stock worth $20,000 ($ in dollars). (Each stock was worth $100 par value.) A perpetual care trust was also established for the first time. Significant improvements were made which included the addition of a high, electrically illuminated arch over the entrance on Glenwood Road. Construction of a $14,000 ($ in dollars), 18-receiving vault chapel began in 1921.;
Mausoleum construction This cemetery began planning for a large mausoleum in 1920, although it was not begun until 1923. The mausoleum was long, running along Sonora Avenue between W. Kenneth and Glenwood Roads. The $400,000 ($ in dollars), one-story structure was made of reinforced concrete and consisted of 12 distinct "buildings". The interior of the mausoleum was clad in marble and had bronze finishings and cathedral glass windows. "Quaint" electric lamps provided interior illumination, while skylights in the roof of each "building" provided additional light. The mausoleum contained a total of 3,400 crypts. Each crypt was high, and there were five crypts in each room. A dry-air circulation system in each crypt helped to encourage desiccation and reduce odor. The cemetery assigned several sections of the mausoleum to local fraternal orders for burial of their dead. The mausoleum also featured a number of "private rooms". Each private room contained two or more crypts, and had its own exterior window. In the center of the mausoleum was a wide, deep new chapel with white stucco exterior walls. The chapel itself was clad in marble and mosaic tile and seated 200. It featured Italian vases high in which plants grew. The chapel also contained 2,000 niches for the emplacement of cremation urns.
The $60,000 ($ in dollars) first phase of the construction consisted of a structure deep and long, containing 400 crypts. This portion of the mausoleum was constructed by local builder C.A. Cornell.
In August 1924, the cemetery began construction on the north mausoleum, which expanded capacity to 5,700 crypts.
The original chapel, mausoleum, and cemetery office are all in the Spanish Colonial Revival style.
A separate chapel in the Spanish Colonial style was constricted in the early 1920's, located in a central location on the cemetery grounds. In the late 1920's a crematory was added to the back end of the chapel, with two retorts. The first cremation was on May 23, 1932. The cremated remains were given to the family. At a later date two more retorts were added, making a total of four.
Hepburn ownership By 1929, the cemetery had 4,000 interments, with about 10 percent of lots sold. Len C. Davis and his wife divorced that same year. The cemetery was one of the disputed assets in the case. In July 1930, a court ordered Len Davis to divest his interest in the cemetery in order to pay alimony to his wife.
Davis sold the cemetery for $2 million ($ in dollars) in March 1931 to a group of investors that included E. H. Dimity, Charles H. Johnston, and William H. Kittle. The new owners planned to build a large new mausoleum along Kenneth Road, and move the cemetery's main entrance there. These plans were never acted on.
Local real estate developer David W. Hepburn was hired that same year to manage the cemetery, and purchased the burial ground some time between 1930 and 1946.
The cemetery completed a multi-year, $3 million ($ in dollars) building project in 1949. The full extent of the project was not clear, but included a new wall around the property. The cemetery at that time planned to erect a 25,000-crypt mausoleum, but this effort was never begun. In time Hepburn's son, David N. Hepburn, took over the cemetery's management. David N. Hepburn was a highly respected cemetery operator both in the state and California and at one point was president of the Cemetery Association of America. Grand View Memorial stopped scattering ashes in its various memorial gardens and terraces in the late 1970s after the buildup of remains became too noticeable. The cemetery started storing cremains for five years, and buried them if they were not claimed. David N. Hepburn retired in 1990, after which Jack Grossman was employed as superintendent of the cemetery.
Grand View Partners ownership The Hepburns sold the cemetery to a new firm, Grand View Partners, in 1991. Marsha Lee Howard, a veteran cemetery industry professional, was hired as the new superintendent. Howard employed her brother, Tom Trimble, as a groundskeeper from 1991 until 2003. In 1998, people living near the cemetery complained about smoke and odors emanating from the burial ground's crematory. The cemetery was warned by the South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD; a state air pollution control agency) that its crematory was not in compliance with state and federal pollution control laws and regulations. After a complaint by a plot owner, a 1998 inspection of the cemetery by the Cemetery and Funeral Bureau (CFB) of the California Department of Consumer Affairs turned up numerous record-keeping problems, and the cemetery was fined $52,200 ($ in dollars).
Howard ownership In 1999, Grand View partners sold the cemetery to Marsha Lee Howard and Moshe Goldsman. According to Howard's brother, Tom Trimble, the cemetery was already in disarray and disrepair when it was offered for sale. Howard purchased the property both as a means of advancing her career and because she wanted to restore the burial ground. Howard lacked the money to buy Grand View outright, so she sought an investment partner. Howard was the majority owner, with 51 percent. Moshe Goldsman was the sole minority owner, with the remaining 49 percent.
According to Trimble, there were extensive cemetery practice, maintenance, and record-keeping problems at Grand View long before Howard purchased the burial ground. The cemetery, he said, had no functioning lawn or tree care equipment, many headstones were leaning or had toppled over, and all irrigation was done by hand. Howard purchased a riding lawn mower, began regular mowing of the site, and started straightening headstones. She also had an irrigation sprinkler system installed in section M, the largest section at Grand View.
The CFB inspected the cemetery again in 1999 after another complaint was filed, and once more fined Howard $52,200 ($ in dollars) for failing to keep proper records.
Howard suffered from Type 1 diabetes, and beginning in September 2002 suffered three life-threatening diabetes-related illnesses which left her hospitalized for long periods of time. According to Trimble, management of the cemetery declined significantly during these periods.
Complaints about the crematory's smoke and odors continued. SCAQMD issued three notices that the cemetery had violated air pollution control standards, and one order of abatement by the end of 2003. Howard was required to make $37,000 ($ in dollars) in crematory equipment upgrades and limit operations of the crematory to limit pollution.
From early 2001 to mid 2005, the CFB received nine complaints from families complaining about cemetery operations. The CFB investigated, but could not verify the complaints. The agency did, however, issue a warning letter to Grand View Memorial in 2004 about its failure to maintain cemetery markers and plot boundary barriers in an acceptable condition.
2005 scandal In the spring of 2004, the state of California enacted legislation giving the CFB authority to inspect cemeteries and other burial sites on an annual basis (not just when a complaint was filed).
The first annual inspection of Grand View Memorial Park occurred in May 2005. The results of that inspection were made public in late October 2005. During the inspection, CFB inspectors discovered about 4,000 cremated remains in cardboard boxes and plastic containers in storage rooms and on the floor of the mausoleum, in mausoleum crypts which should have held full-body remains, in the chapel, and in a dumpster. Most of the remains dated to the 1930s and 1940s, with smaller numbers from the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. A few remains were from the 1990s. Some containers had spilled, and the remains of several people were mixed together on the floor. The remains of seven individuals were found in the chapel in temporary crypts, having never been permanently interred.
CFB inspectors found the cemetery's records in very poor condition. The records room was infested with rodents, and records regarding some of the remains were so incomplete or were missing altogether that the remains could not be identified. Maps of in-ground burials, mausoleum full-body crypt and cremains niche burials, and chapel burials were missing or extremely inaccurate, sometimes showing remains where none were found and sometimes not depicting burials which others records indicated had occurred. Later investigations revealed that a large number of cremated remains had been buried throughout the cemetery without records kept regarding their location. Crematory records were in similar poor condition.
The cemetery itself was in general disarray. Most areas were overgrown, and there were numerous dead trees and bushes. All buildings were in disrepair. Groundskeeping tools, trash, caskets and grave markers were scattered over the property and throughout public buildings. So much trash and rodent feces had accumulated in the mausoleum that visitors could not access some crypts or niches. In the below-ground portion of the mausoleum, cremation niches were broken (exposing urns), some urns had been removed from niches, and trash was scattered on the floor.
As state officials combed through the cemetery's records, they discovered that Grand View had sold the same plot several times, disinterred bodies from graves and then resold the plots, disinterred bodies without state authorization, buried multiple bodies in a plot that should have held one person, and either failed to place markers on graves or willfully discarded or recycled markers. Advance purchase contracts for plots were inaccurate or incomplete. They also discovered that Howard had removed $40,000 from the perpetual care trust fund as a "loan" but never repaid it.
The CFB issued an order suspending all operations at Grand View Memorial Park. The cemetery was prohibited from selling new graves or soliciting new business. Burials could continue if already planned, or if planned for plots which had already been purchased. Howard and Goldsman's state licenses to operate a cemetery were suspended, and Howard was no longer permitted to act as the burial ground's superintendent. The CFB launched a broader investigation into the cemetery's practices with an eye to turning over evidence to the Los Angeles County District Attorney for possible criminal prosecution. Howard denied knowing that any cremated remains were being stored or that bodies had been improperly buried in the chapel.