KENT, Conn.—Cemetery Sexton Brent Kallstrom continues to find additional burial plots in cemeteries previously thought to be full.

At its June meeting, he reported to the Cemetery Commission that the maps of the older cemeteries are “really crude,” and that a closer look at them might be beneficial. 

He said he has been approached by people with connections to the community who have expressed interest in being buried in some of the older cemeteries.

He has probed the land in some of the cemeteries to determine if there are burials there, but commission members cautioned that the plots may have been sold in the past and the deeds misplaced. 

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Commission Chairman Lorry Schiesel asked, “Where are the sales documentations? Where is our copy of something sold in 1995? The original copy of the deed goes to the owner, then 25 years pass … We can’t sell until we confirm a plot has never been sold.”

Kallstrom suggested a different structure for payment, with only one fee covering all aspects of a burial, such as stone location, foundation fee, sexton fee and the like.

But Schiesel said it would be better to break fees into two parts—one for the purchase of the grave and the second payment when it is used.

Kathryn Boughton has been editor of the Kent Dispatch since its digital reincarnation in October 2023 as a nonprofit online publication. A native of Canaan, Conn., Kathryn has been a regional journalist...

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