u/NurseSarahBitch

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I’m hoping someone here might be able to help me make sense of a very strange situation involving my great-grandmother’s headstone.

My great-grandmother, Gladys T. Dickson Lehman, was buried in a cemetery in Bogalusa, Louisiana. This week, a relative received a phone call stating that a headstone bearing her name was found painted over and was being used on a completely different person’s grave in Pelahatchie, Mississippi.

Apparently, the stone had been there for some time. Cemetery employees were doing some work and noticed something that caused them to look more closely. Once they examined it, they discovered that underneath the paint was my great-grandmother’s name.

We are now trying to figure out how this could have happened.

One possibility is that someone actually removed her headstone from the Bogalusa cemetery, painted over it, and reused it for another grave in Mississippi.

But another possibility occurred to me: could this have been an old, unused or rejected monument that was repurposed? We are wondering if there could have originally been two stones made for her. Perhaps the first had an error or some other issue, a replacement was made, and instead of destroying or discarding the original, someone painted over it and eventually reused it elsewhere.

What makes this even stranger is that I contacted the Bogalusa Public Works Department, since they oversee the cemetery commission, to ask whether someone could check my great-grandmother’s grave and confirm whether her current headstone is still there. They told me they had also recently received a report about another missing headstone from the same cemetery.

Unfortunately, they did not seem able or willing to go out and check my great-grandmother’s grave, so at this point we don't even know whether the stone currently marking her grave is still there.

If anyone happens to be local to Bogalusa and is familiar with this cemetery, I would be incredibly grateful if someone could simply look for my great-grandmother’s grave and tell me whether the headstone pictured on her Find a Grave page is still there. I’m not asking anyone to touch or move anything, just to visually confirm what is currently at the grave site.

Here is her Find a Grave page, which includes a photograph of the headstone and additional information:

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/93641168/gladys\_mary-lehman

Has anyone heard of anything like this happening before?

I feel like I’ve stumbled into the weirdest mystery and I need a Louisianian to help me make sense of it.

Yesterday, a relative received a phone call saying that my great-grandmother’s headstone (which should have been on her grave in Bogalusa) was found painted over, sitting on top of a completely different person’s grave in Pelahatchie, Mississippi.

The call was from the cemetery in Pelahatchie. Apparently, the headstone had been sitting there for a while. The cemetery employees noticed something that made them look more closely, and underneath the paint they found my great-grandmother’s name: Gladys T. Dickson Lehman.

The way I see it, there are only two possibilities here:

1. Someone stole her headstone, painted it, and put it on top of someone else’s grave rather than paying for a new stone.

2. Maybe there are two headstones involved? The one in Mississippi could have been the original stone made for my great-grandmother, but maybe there was some kind of error on it and a second one was made for her grave. Instead of scrapping the first stone, perhaps they painted over it and somehow it eventually ended up in Mississippi. But we have absolutely no idea if that’s what happened.

My mom was trying to send me pictures of the painted stone, but instead of sending the pictures normally, she accidentally sent me the JPEG base64 string because she, to put it kindly, is not particularly tech-savvy. 😂 Thus far, I've been unable to talk her through this over the phone.

I called the Bogalusa Public Works Department because they oversee the Cemetery Commission and asked if someone could go check the cemetery in Bogalusa to see whether my great-grandmother’s headstone is actually still at her grave or if it appears to be missing.

And apparently this is not even the only missing headstone they’re dealing with! They said they had received another call recently about a missing headstone at the same cemetery. Unfortunately, it didn't seem like they were able or willing to go check whether my great-grandmother’s stone is still at her grave.

So, here's the ask: Is there anyone local to the Bogalusa, LA area who might be willing to do me a huge favor and stop by the cemetery to look for my great-grandmother’s grave? I just need someone to visually confirm whether the stone is there.

I’m not local to the area, and it would be incredibly helpful to have someone physically check. Here is her Find a Grave page, which has a picture of the stone and other relevant information: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/93641168/gladys\_mary-lehman

I genuinely don’t know whether we’re dealing with a bizarre clerical/headstone mix-up, an old cemetery practice that nobody remembers, someone deliberately moving stones around, or something much stranger!

If you’re local and willing to help solve this extremely weird mystery, please comment or DM me. I would be incredibly grateful!