Help on the way for Iowa cemetery

LEHIGH, Iowa (AP) — A group of landscape workers has volunteered to stop more graves from being swept into a ravine by erosion at Oak Grove Cemetery near Lehigh in north central Iowa.

Phil Berglund, a member of the board of trustees that oversees the cemetery, told The Messenger in Fort Dodge that the landscapers volunteered to tackle the problem. Heavy rains in 2009 caused most of the damage. Several headstones slid down a slope. A burial vault was protruding from the bank and some bones were exposed.

Berglund says the volunteer crew will have to move some graves away from the eroding hillside. He says he’s working with the Webster County attorney’s office on the legalities involved in relocating graves.