Families at the Hardin Fairview Cemetery say mementos placed at the gravesites of loved ones have been removed by cemetery workers and discarded in a dumpster, sparking outrage in the community.
Watch Hardin Cemetery video here:
Statues, flowers, shepherd hooks, and wind chimes placed at gravesites have been taken away as part of what a cemetery caretaker described as a safety and maintenance effort.
Families say they were never notified of any new protocols before the removals began.
The cemetery has rules posted on the grounds, but residents say a newer set of rules was posted more recently, while an older blue posting had been in place much earlier.
Corina Kirschenmann-Kuntz posted a video on Facebook of items she found in dumpsters near the cemetery.
The video drew attention from people outside of Montana.
"Well, when you're grieving, everything, I mean, you go out there and you mourn their loss and you remember them," said Michelle Vandersloot, who now lives in Gillette, Wyoming. "And you're not able to celebrate their birthday or celebrate the day that they passed away. That's your time with them."
Some families also raised concerns about items being removed from Native American gravesites, saying that practice amounts to desecration.
"We do not remove one thing from a Native American grave, so all the things that were placed here are gone," Francine Morrison said about her son's grave site.
"This just escalated," said Karleen Pitsch Jacobs, Morrison's sister. "It's desecration to a Native American headstone or gravesite. You can't touch anything."
An unidentified cemetery caretaker captured on video posted on social media pushed back on the characterization that items were being thrown away, but families pointed to the dumpsters as evidence.
"We're not throwing it away," a cemetery worker can be heard saying in Kirschenmann-Kuntz's video.
"What about all that stuff in the dumpster?" a resident responded.
Families say shepherd hooks with wind chimes were put back up, only to be removed again.
"Two shepherd hooks with their wind chimes back up and yeah, they are gone again," Kirschenmann-Kuntz said. "I'm sure they're back over there."
About 5,000 people are buried at the Hardin Fairview Cemetery, which has been in Hardin since 1912.
Residents say they want accountability and a community conversation about how the situation was handled.
"I think first of all people need to accept responsibility, right?" said Andy Jacobs. "It's a small community. Can they just call a meeting and say listen, we messed up, we apologize."
MTN was referred to the cemetery board for comment and has not yet heard back from the board president.
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