Memorial Day flowers taken from Endicott cemetery graves

Thieves struck at the Endicott Cemetery Sunday afternoon, stealing dozens of flower arrangements from graves along the cemetery’s rear access road just before Memorial Day.

“I just don’t understand what they want with them all,” said Ray Huntley, a director of the cemetery’s board, who was tending to the cemetery Tuesday.

Huntley said word began to spread Sunday that flowers were missing, but nobody was quite sure exactly when the flowers were nabbed.

Deputies were called out to investigate Sunday night. Sheriff’s Sgt. Chris Chapman said there were no witnesses to the theft or to see who may have pirated the flowers.

“The only thing I can think is it was somebody who probably had no idea what those flowers meant to people,” said Chapman.

Huntley said graves Saturday were decorated with flowers to commemorate loved ones on Memorial Day.

Some were elaborate potted plants, others were simple hand-picked flowers, like the peonies and lilacs Chris Kackman of Colfax left on her parents’ graves.

“We didn’t lose anything of any value, but it’s just really silly to think they would take flowers,” said Kackman.

The back road runs from the Endicott-St. John highway uphill to a corner in the cemetery. Huntley said flowers were plucked from graves all along the not-quite quarter-mile gravel driveway.

He guessed a heavy truck or two would have been required to haul away the flowers, some of which were placed in large, heavy pots.

Huntley hoped someone with information, or someone who noticed a large load of flowers in a truck Sunday would contact authorities.

Perhaps most puzzling to him, Chapman and Kackman is the intended purpose of the flower snatchers.

“I just can’t imagine what in the world they would do with them,” said Kackman.