An uncertain fate awaits a memorial garden in Clayton County where about three dozen grieving families deposited the ashes of their stillborn babies, Channel 2 Action News reported.
“We don't know what's going on. We just want this left alone,” one of the parents, Amanda Bartlett, told Channel 2 after learning the garden’s owner, Pope Dixon Funeral Home, had been foreclosed.
The funeral home building and land on North McDonough Road in Jonesboro are now for sale. The real estate agent handling the property for a bank told Channel 2 he was not sure if the rose garden that received the babies' ashes was part of the foreclosure.
Bartlett has started an online petition and set up a Facebook page, urging that the garden be protected.
The garden, set within multiple circular stone walls, had been suggested as a final resting place for stillborn children by staffers at Southern Regional Medical Center, Bartlett said. She said she had assumed the hospital gave financial support to the garden.
Southern Regional gave a statement to Channel 2, acknowledging that “Pope Dixon Funeral Home's Rose Garden was one of many options extended to patients and families that experienced the loss of a loved one.”
But, the hospital said, “there was no financial agreement made between Pope Dixon and Southern Regional, and the maintenance of the grounds was the sole responsibility of the funeral home.”
Jonesboro Mayor Joy Day told Channel 2 that the garden is private property, and the city has little authority over what happens to it.
Bartlett said, “We have to worry about where our baby is going to be or if something's going to happen and we're not going to be allowed onto the property. Are they going to pave over it?”
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