Marine's family at odds with St. Michael cemetery over son's tombstone
Terri Guzy visits her son's grave at St. Michael The Archangel cemetery in Palatine every day.
For months, a simple, wooden marker sat atop Michael Scott Guzy's final resting place, letting visitors know when the Barrington High School graduate was born and that he was a U.S. Marine when he was killed in a July 19 accident.
"I make sure the area is neatly trimmed around him and bring flowers," the mother from Inverness said. "We have a laminated picture of him from the memorial by the grave so visitors can look at him."
The marker was meant to be temporary, holding the spot until a 3-foot-tall granite cross provided by the Marines could be installed in it place.
But when it came time to place the cross at Michael's gravesite, cemetery officials refused to allow it.
"We don't allow those upright stones, never have," said John Horst, an assistant manager for Catholic Cemeteries. "Those are the rules we've had for 170 years."
Horst said those rules would have been clearly stated in the contract the Guzys signed to buy Michael's grave plot.
But Brian Guzy, Michael's father, said cemetery officials signed off on the grave marker in July and are now trying to go back on their word. A Catholic Cemeteries official named Michael Odahowski signed a document from the Department of Veterans Affairs specifying the family wanted an upright granite marker in the shape of a cross at Michael's grave, he said.
"We can't believe they are backing out on this signed agreement," Brian Guzy said Thursday. "The St. Michael people said that whoever agreed to it shouldn't have agreed to it."
Michael Guzy died July 19 when he was struck by an SUV while walking across an interstate in San Diego. He had been stationed at nearby Camp Pendleton.
When contacted Thursday, Odahowski said he could not to speak to the media, but his boss, Steve Lynch, a director of operations for Catholic Cemeteries, would call back soon. Lynch never called back. A call to Lynch's boss, Catholic Cemeteries Executive Director Roman Szabelsk, also was not returned Thursday.
Brian Guzy said a cemetery official told him they allow only flat grave markers in the section his son is buried in so they can mow the grass.
To make matters worse for the Guzy family, the temporary wooden marker that had been over Michael's grave the last two months was removed between the time Terri Guzy visited the grave Wednesday morning and when she returned Thursday afternoon. The picture of her son was carefully placed in an adjacent flower basket.
"I'm so outraged, I just can't believe they would do this," Terri Guzy said through tears. "They desecrated his grave out of sheer pettiness and spite."
Until the family and the cemetery work out what is to be done, Michael's granite grave marker is behind locked doors at the St. Michael the Archangel office. Terri Guzy said she hasn't seen the cross and doesn't intend to until it is placed next to her son's grave.
"I just want my son's headstone installed," she said.