Cemetery officials: We'll try to resolve dispute over Marine's grave marker
The head of Catholic Cemeteries said Friday officials want to resolve a dispute with the family of Michael Scott Guzy, a Marine buried in an unmarked grave at St. Michael the Archangel Cemetery in Palatine.
The grave is unmarked because cemetery officials say the 3-foot-tall granite cross provided by the Marines does not conform to their rules.
Roman Szabelsk, the executive director of Catholic Cemeteries, said Friday that Guzy is buried in an area of the cemetery where only flat grave markers are allowed.
But Brian and Terri Guzy, Michael Guzy's parents, say their request for the cross was approved by the cemetery before they decided to bury their son at St. Michael.
The Guzy family has a copy of a document from the Department of Veterans Affairs specifying they wanted an upright marker. The document is signed by a Catholic Cemeteries official who runs St. Michael the Archangel and All Saints Cemetery in Des Plaines.
Szabelsk said his office is investigating how the official came to sign a document he should not have, but Brian Guzy said Catholic Cemeteries should honor the paperwork.
"They can't just say, 'We made a mistake, too bad,'" he said.
Catholic Cemeteries has offered to install a flat stone marker that complies with the cemetery rules.
"We don't want a flat marker," Brian Guzy said. "I said to them don't even order it, it's not what we agreed to."
As the dispute has raged over the last two months, Michael Guzy's grave was marked by a temporary wooden marker made by the Marines. Now, that marker has gone missing - sometime between when Terri Guzy visited her son's grave Wednesday morning and Thursday afternoon.
Szabelsk said the temporary marker was removed as part of the ground crews' normal efforts to prepare the cemetery lawns for the winter. Decoration violations like the wooden marker are taken out so the crews can spray weeds, put in winter fertilizer and mow.
"Because it was laying on the ground it became a potential threat," Szabelsk said. "Anything that gets picked up by the riding mowers (can) become like shrapnel."
Terri Guzy said she believes they were singled out because of their dispute. She said she took pictures of other decoration violations at graves near her son's.
Szabelsk said the crews do their best to remove violating decorations, but sometimes families replace them the same day.
Terri Guzy said she was offended the cemetery would remove the wooden marker without telling them.
"No one has contacted me, no one has given me any information at all," she said. "Right now his grave is unmarked. I can't believe they would go this low."
Catholic Cemeteries did not attempt to contact the Guzy family on Friday, but Szabelsk said he will call next week.
Meanwhile, Michael's granite cross is behind locked doors in the cemetery office.
He died July 19 after he was struck by an SUV while walking across an interstate in San Diego. He had been stationed at nearby Camp Pendleton.