Family members of loved ones buried at Burr Oak Cemetery visit the grave sites following reports in 2009 of a grave reselling scheme there. The cemetery was sold this week for $110,000.
Burr Oak Cemetery in south suburban Alsip and Cedar Park Cemetery & Funeral Home in Calumet Park are under new ownership after a federal judge on Tuesday approved the $1 million sale of the cemeteries to a Black-owned company. The sale was made at a public auction held Monday for the two burial sites.
Cemecare, a partnership between Lafayette Gatling Sr., owner of Gatling’s Community Development Inc. in south suburban Oak Forest and Willie Carter, owner of Restvale Cemetery in Alsip, bought Burr Oak for $110,000 and Cedar Park for $890,000.
The Cedar Park sale will be finalized in the coming weeks, but Burr Oak’s sale is awaiting a green light on an improvement plan for conditions at the cemetery before the new owners take over.
Initially, the opening bid for the 105-acre Burr Oak Cemetery and the nearby 90-acre Cedar Park Cemetery & Funeral Home in Calumet Park was $675,000.
Gatling declined comment and Carter did not return Defender phone calls seeking comment.
Both cemeteries were owned by Perpetua Inc, which filed for bankruptcy in 2009 after several lawsuits were filed against the owner for neglect.
Burr Oak made headlines last spring when four employees there were arrested and charged with a gravesite-reselling scheme.
The cemetery is famous for those buried there, including civil rights icon Emmett Till and singer Dinah Washington. Throughout its storied history, the cemetery was known as one of a few that would allow Black people to be buried there.
Copyright 2010 Chicago Defender.
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