District attorney seeks solution for rundown Charleroi Cemetery
Tombstones, including those of war veterans, sit among tall grass at Charleroi Cemetery.
A large pile of building material sits just beyond graves at Charleroi Cemetery.
A pile of rubbish sits beside a road and graves at Charleroi Cemetery.
The weathered sign at the entrance to Charleroi Cemetery, which is reached on roads that are barely passable.
An overgrown tombstone at Charleroi Cemetery.
A burial in October has yet to be fully covered with soil at Charleroi Cemetery.
CHARLEROI – A weathered sign at the entrance to Charleroi Cemetery reminds visitors they are entering a sacred place that merits their respect and honor.
The sign isn’t living up to its promise as tombstones here rest in knee-high grass and rubbish is piled high along the road near graves.
“It looks like a hay field,” said Washington County District Attorney Gene Vittone, who is investigating how the cemetery fell into this condition.
“There are veterans buried up there. We have to do something,” Vittone said.
Complaints began to pour into Charleroi Borough on a Facebook page in a post by Stacey Bongiorno Wolfe, who said Thursday she was appalled to see the cemetery’s condition when she went there on Father’s Day.
“I do want that cemetery taken care of because I have family members on both sides buried up there,” Wolfe said Thursday. “I’m supposed to be buried up there.”
Charleroi Borough manager Donn Henderson said the cemetery is actually in Fallowfield Township, just across the borough line. It’s reached off Old Route 71 following Deanbroggi Road that turns into a private road with many ruts that trails into the cemetery.
Washington County recorder of deeds files indicate the property is tax-exempt and still owned by Charleroi Cemetery Co. under a 1901 property sale by the former owner, James H. Sheppard. There are no other deed transfers on file there regarding the 34-acre parcel.
A May 1987 filing with the Pennsylvania Department of State gave notice that the cemetery corporation was dissolved in a unanimous vote by its 16 directors. That document listed Frank Rauchfuss Sr. as the corporation’s president and Frank Rauchfuss Jr. as its secretary/treasurer. Another document filed June 4, 2001, with the department signed by cemetery company president Frank Rauchfuss of 452 Old 71, Charleroi, indicated the cemetery was continuing to exist. There were no other online State Department documents regarding the cemetery available Friday.
A woman who answered the door Friday at 452 Old 71 said Rauchfuss was not home.
A business card, meanwhile, indicates James and Ann Price of Belle Vernon are responsible for the cemetery. Contacted Thursday, Ann Price said her husband James owns the cemetery and that the transaction was handled by Charleroi attorney Richard Mudrick.
Mudrick did not return a message Thursday.
Washington County Chief Assessor Brad Boni said all burial grounds in Pennsylvania by law are tax-exempt as long as their owners are not deriving a private or corporate profit from burials. In the event of a cemetery sale, a new owner would need to show the county that the profits are returned to upkeep of the grounds or the cemetery would return to the tax rolls.
“If real estate is (sold), that would need to be recorded,” Boni said.
Vittone said bodies were still being buried there in 2014, and that he would need to investigate to determine who has been handling the burials. He said it was believed nearly 27,000 bodies were buried there since the cemetery received its charter in 1891.
“The first thing is getting the grass cut,” said Vittone, who plans to recruit a crew of Washington County jail inmates to do that.
He said he also needs to find out what is going on with the cemetery corporation.
“It’s a torturous road with this thing,” Vittone said. “We need to look into the transfer of ownership.”
Meanwhile, Wolfe said volunteers went to the cemetery July 12 and cut some of the grass around the graves.
However, the cemetery needs to have a better long-term solution to perpetual care, Henderson said.