CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (AP) – Floral Hills Memorial Gardens near Ooltewah is so overgrown that William Paris had to hack his way through with a machete recently when he went looking for his mother’s grave.
He also found trash and a dead, bloated deer on the unkempt 11-acre property at 4546 Pattentown Road.
He remembers the site being well-kept and full of visible headstones when he buried his mother there in the 1980s. But over the next three decades, Paris had three heart attacks and battled other illnesses that kept him from the cemetery.
“Anybody in 1988 or 1989 can tell you there were headstones everywhere,” he said. “How it got like this I have no idea.”
He stood near a heap of dumped tires and made this vow: “I want to find out who is responsible and get them to clean it up.”