GREGORY, TX — Families still go to the Gregory Cemetery to visit their lost loved ones but as some of them tell KRIS 6 it’s become quite dangerous to walk through overgrown grass or pick up any trash left behind. The families are now asking for something to be done.
“There are some very nice and expensive tombs. Then you can't see them with so much trash and ugly things in the way,” Gregory resident, Angelica Cuevas said.
This is what Cuevas and her friends have been dealing with at the Gregory Cemetery.
Lydia Sotelo has most of her family buried here. She said this problem goes as far back as the 1950s.
“I usually get a broom and sweep it or whatever I can do because I can’t do very much,” Sotelo said.
For several years, a neighbor has been cleaning the cemetery for free, but he recently got sick.
That was when the cemetery got worse. And many people came to clean up, but many did not,” Maria Gonzalez said.
This group of ladies do what they can, but they want answers before this place is forgotten.
KRIS 6 News was able to obtain a document from San Patricio County.
It shows, since 2017, the Gregory Cemetery was owned by the Gregory Portland Cemetery Association with judge David Krebs as the president.
We reached out to Krebbs he told KRIS 6 News, that the cemetery was donated property in the 1800’s. There is no perpetual care, but he wants to try and get it cleaned up with the help of the community.
“One day, once a month or whenever we can come and clean up and the ones out of town can do the same thing. Our families are buried here,” Sotelo said.
KRIS 6 reached out to the mayor of Gregory, Estella Boyes. She said she wants to help.
Boyes plans to host a community clean-up sometime in September.
