No room at the 'inn'

By Ted Cohen/The Maine Wire

A Maine man who wanted to be buried in the town cemetery but was told it was closed figured there was only one option - buy the damn thing.

But Lawrence Butler had no idea what kind of a backlash he would face in the town of Thomaston when he tried to - yes - buy Butler Cemetery to make room for when his day comes.

Even though many of Butler's relatives are buried there, the cemetery is actually owned by the town.

So when town officials told Butler it was closed to further burials he decided he had no other choice. He told the town he wanted to buy it.

Selectmen liked the idea, thinking that unloading the cemetery would avoid the annual $7,500 taxpayer expense of maintaining it.

They asked town voters for permission to sell it to Butler for $18.38 as long as he promised to put it in a perpetual trust ensuring that it would be forever maintained.

But voters - including even some of Butler's relatives - pushed back, voting down the proposed sale at a town meeting. They said if Butler bought it they feared it could fall into disrepair someday after he's, well, buried there.

Butler's cousin Walter Butler joined voters opposing the sale, saying he feared Lawrence wouldn't be able to ensure perpetual care even after he was gone, contract or no contract.

Opponents to the sale included Donna Godfrey, 75, who lives across from the cemetery and whose husband is buried there.

“They're my family,” she said of all the people in the cemetery. “I feel like I've adopted them.”

For 50 years Godfrey and her husband maintained the cemetery, cutting the grass and fixing the grave stones.

Her daughter, Jamie Fullerton, blasted selectmen for trying to hand off the cemetery to a private owner even as her mother continued to maintain it.

“You know how much this cemetery has meant to her. However, you go behind her back and write up a purchase and sales agreement to someone that has not shown any interest like she has,” Fullerton told town officials.

Fullerton, whose grandparents are buried in the cemetery along with her father, later issued a passionate thank you to town voters for overwhelmingly nixing the sale.

“Thank you for coming out on this cold night and voting no,” she told them after the election. “It is so much appreciated.”