Evelyn Prouty hasn’t cut her own lawn for three weeks.
She’s too busy volunteering trying to devote more than eight hours a week to the time-consuming task of mowing grass between cement curbing and headstones at East Union Cemetery when she’s not busy toiling as an unpaid 64-year-old grave digger.
It is something she’s being doing for closing in on 2.5 years ever since the cemetery association had to let all of its employees go due to financial and legal trouble in the aftermath of embezzlement. Prouty hasn’t complained even though people get indignant demanding to know why the lawn isn’t cut more often. When she tells them there is no paid staff to help and that the city can’t assist more than they have done due to it being a private association, some are incredulous that she along with Bill Good are the only ones basically doing the bulk of the cemetery upkeep for free. Rarely, though, does anyone offer any help.
Now she is getting near her wit’s end. One of the two 40-year-old lawn mowers - both are needed due to specialized cutting tasks that a cemetery requires - has gone down for the count
The price tag for the replacement mower is $7,500. The high price is due to a number of factors. Unlike a residential mower - she uses her own personal mower constantly at the cemetery - that goes for an hour at a time, the job needs a commercial mower that can run for eight hours or more. It also has wheels and hydraulics that allows it to go over curbing and other obstacles that are part of the landscape in a cemetery with relative ease and without stopping the mower, getting off, raising the deck, stopping and getting off and lowering the deck repeatedly.
It gets worse. The remaining mower, which is a Walker, has also stopped functioning. But unlike the Hustler mower, mechanics say the Walker is repairable at a cost somewhere in excess of $600.
The association has raised $1,500 toward the purchase price to replace the Hustler mower. With the grass needing to be cut weekly, it meant Prouty - who works part-time - would try to cut it in an hour and a half time frame she has on week days before the sun goes down. More often than not before the lawn mower died for good, she’d cut for 30 or so minutes and then the lawn mower would stop running forcing her to spend the next hour or so working on it.
In a desire to have the cemetery tidy for Veterans Day, the association rented a lawn mower for the month.
But after December rolls around, they don’t know what they will be doing.
They have three options. They could close the gates and let the weeds take over, close the gates and try to find someone to bring sheep in so at least the cemetery wouldn’t get overgrown, or hope to secure enough contributions to buy a new mower.
Some have suggested she conduct fundraisers but between her part-time job - she’s executive director of the Manteca Museum - cutting grass and actually digging graves by hand Prouty doesn’t have the time.
Good helps but due to a pinched nerve he can’t help with the graves except for running the tractor. That leaves Prouty to do the back breaking work of hand shoveling. Sometimes they will have others who can help such as Victory Gully and Rocky Wilson.
They have a particular tricky burial coming up in a few days near the well house. It is too narrow to get the tractor in place. That means she will have to dig the hole by herself - by hand - unless she get some help.
If you would like to assist as an on-call grave digger or can help with raise to raise money for a replacement lawn mower, contact Prouty at 982-0339.
She’s too busy volunteering trying to devote more than eight hours a week to the time-consuming task of mowing grass between cement curbing and headstones at East Union Cemetery when she’s not busy toiling as an unpaid 64-year-old grave digger.
It is something she’s being doing for closing in on 2.5 years ever since the cemetery association had to let all of its employees go due to financial and legal trouble in the aftermath of embezzlement. Prouty hasn’t complained even though people get indignant demanding to know why the lawn isn’t cut more often. When she tells them there is no paid staff to help and that the city can’t assist more than they have done due to it being a private association, some are incredulous that she along with Bill Good are the only ones basically doing the bulk of the cemetery upkeep for free. Rarely, though, does anyone offer any help.
Now she is getting near her wit’s end. One of the two 40-year-old lawn mowers - both are needed due to specialized cutting tasks that a cemetery requires - has gone down for the count
The price tag for the replacement mower is $7,500. The high price is due to a number of factors. Unlike a residential mower - she uses her own personal mower constantly at the cemetery - that goes for an hour at a time, the job needs a commercial mower that can run for eight hours or more. It also has wheels and hydraulics that allows it to go over curbing and other obstacles that are part of the landscape in a cemetery with relative ease and without stopping the mower, getting off, raising the deck, stopping and getting off and lowering the deck repeatedly.
It gets worse. The remaining mower, which is a Walker, has also stopped functioning. But unlike the Hustler mower, mechanics say the Walker is repairable at a cost somewhere in excess of $600.
The association has raised $1,500 toward the purchase price to replace the Hustler mower. With the grass needing to be cut weekly, it meant Prouty - who works part-time - would try to cut it in an hour and a half time frame she has on week days before the sun goes down. More often than not before the lawn mower died for good, she’d cut for 30 or so minutes and then the lawn mower would stop running forcing her to spend the next hour or so working on it.
In a desire to have the cemetery tidy for Veterans Day, the association rented a lawn mower for the month.
But after December rolls around, they don’t know what they will be doing.
They have three options. They could close the gates and let the weeds take over, close the gates and try to find someone to bring sheep in so at least the cemetery wouldn’t get overgrown, or hope to secure enough contributions to buy a new mower.
Some have suggested she conduct fundraisers but between her part-time job - she’s executive director of the Manteca Museum - cutting grass and actually digging graves by hand Prouty doesn’t have the time.
Good helps but due to a pinched nerve he can’t help with the graves except for running the tractor. That leaves Prouty to do the back breaking work of hand shoveling. Sometimes they will have others who can help such as Victory Gully and Rocky Wilson.
They have a particular tricky burial coming up in a few days near the well house. It is too narrow to get the tractor in place. That means she will have to dig the hole by herself - by hand - unless she get some help.
If you would like to assist as an on-call grave digger or can help with raise to raise money for a replacement lawn mower, contact Prouty at 982-0339.
