Local Cemetery Holds Unhappy Experiences for Louisville Man

This story was published by The Daily Ypsilanti Press Tuesday, July 23, 1918.

Attorney Burns C. Wetherall, Sr. of Louisville, Ka.. left a well filled grip Monday in the shade of a tree near Starkweather chapel, while he went to visit a sister’s grave in an effort to make an estimate of the size of the lot preparatory for the putting up a monument. When he returned, the grip and the contents which included a new suit of clothes, underwear and laundry, etc., were missing.

Mr. Wetherall has his suspicions as to the guilty parties and on his return from New York investigations will be made.

This particular cemetery has long figured in unhappy experiences for Wetherall. It was in this place he says; that he met a local college girl with whom he lived several unhappy years and from whom he was later divorced.

A year ago while attending memorial services he lost his wallet containing his money and a return railroad ticket to Cleveland, O.

Last fall he was minus his Masonic watch charm, when he returned from a ride through the cemetery and a few weeks ago while here with his two small children, he tarried too long with an Ypsilanti friend by the side of the graves of relatives and when the party of four were ready to leave in an automobile, the cemetery gates were locked. The sexton had to be roused at ten o’clock from his slumbers, and when they finally got out it was so late that the Wetherall family missed meeting their daughter, who was attending a Normal (EMU) event, and the 10:25 Michigan Central train which all of them were to have taken.

Indeed it seemed on this last occasion as if the father was meant to be bereft of all three of his children. The two who accompanied him to the cemetery were sure the sexton was only to be found at the red brick house south of the gates, and they started off alone to locate him at this point. They didn’t find him however, and instead of coming back to the cemetery, they headed the other way after an automobile that had passed, believing it to be the one in which they had been riding.

The youngsters were found later near the Swaine home (corner of River and Forest), nearly sick from fright.

“Your Highland cemetery may be beautiful, but I do not want to look forward to ‘resting’ in it. I would anticipate a grave robbery if I were buried here,” said Mr. Wetherall Monday, after hopeless hunt for his belongings and a recital of some of he happenings in which he had figured.