Save the Rose Garden that holds baby remains
- by: Amanda Bartlett
- recipient: Mayor Joy Day 129 North Avenue Jonesboro, GA 30236
A property in Jonesboro, N Mcdonough St, Clayton County, Georgia, where Pope Dickson was, has a Rose Garden that was promised to the parents that suffered pregnancy or infant loss, to be a place they could come to forever to visit their babies. We are now being told by the city that they were unaware that the Rose Garden was there. A Rose Garden which holds the human (cremated) remains of our babies. Now it has been offered to the City of Jonesboro that "would love to accept if offered" still we have no concrete answers. We want our babies remains left where they are and the property deeded as a cemetery so we never face this heartbreak again.
Jonesboro Mayor Joy Day told Channel 2 that the garden is private property, and the city has little authority over what happens to it. Southern Regional gave a statement to Channel 2, acknowledging that “Pope Dixon Funeral Home's Rose Garden was one of many options extended to patients and families that experienced the loss of a loved one.”
But, the hospital said, “there was no financial agreement made between Pope Dixon and Southern Regional, and the maintenance of the grounds was the sole responsibility of the funeral home.”
Jonesboro Mayor Joy Day told Channel 2 that the garden is private property, and the city has little authority over what happens to it.
www.facebook.com/jonesborobabies
www.facebook.com/jonesborobabies
To: Mayor Joy Day
129 North Avenue
Dear Mayor Day,
We come forth to ask you to accept the Rose Garden from Ab Dickson and to deed it as a cemetery so that we never again have to worry about our precious baby's remains again. We know that you will do the right, the correct, the good thing, for both loved ones of the babies and the babies themselves. These are people's children, people love these babies. This property is not merely a monument of the history of Jonesboro to us, but a place where our children are memorialized, visited, loved, and remembered.
Sincerely,
The undersigned.
How does a city or county not know about a cemetery for babies? Is it because they were “not born” though the mothers gave birth to them, that they are not important? This would not happen at a regular cemetery.
Our children were sold to a bank! Without notice the funeral home was forclosed on, the parents were not notified. The bank claims it did not know there were human remains on the property. The City of Jonesboro claims it did not know there were human remains on the property at all, best kept secret!
Also, the new property owners will not display a sign letting the other parents know about any of this!
Though Southern Regional Medical Center denies that they told patients they funded the Rose Garden they did until 2010. At the last memorial service held that April in 2010, the parents were informed since Southern Regional dropped their funding there would be no more yearly memorials, and upkeep would be hard.
Our story was aired by the amazing people at Fox 5 Atlanta, Julia Reynolds, came to the Rose Garden and interviewed Amanda Bartlett- Story below. Please help by signing this petition so that we, the parents, know what will happen to the resting place for our babies. Please help us save this spot, and not let anyone, sell it and pave over it as if it does not matter!
“Parents are concerned about the fate of a rose garden at funeral home in Jonesboro now in foreclosure. The garden contains the ashes of dozens of babies” (Julia Reynolds, 2012).
“When mother Amanda Bartlett heard that the Pope Dickson Funeral Home had gone out of business, she immediately thought of her son’s ashes, which are scattered in the property’s rose garden” (Reynolds, 2012).
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