James
Davis of Alabama fulfilled his wife Patsy's wish of being buried outside
their home, and now, he's in a fight with the City Council to keep her
there:
"Good Lord, they've raised pigs in their yard, there's horses
out the road here in a corral in the city limits, they've got other
gravesites here all over the place," said Davis. "And there
shouldn't have been a problem."
While state health officials say family burial plots aren't uncommon
in Alabama, city officials worry about the precedent set by allowing
a grave on a residential lot on one of the main streets through town.
They say state law gives the city some control over where people bury
their loved ones and have cited concerns about long-term care, appearance,
property values and the complaints of some neighbors.
"We're not in the 1800s any longer," said city attorney Parker
Edmiston. "We're not talking about a homestead, we're not talking
about someone who is out in the country on 40 acres of land. Mr. Davis
lives in downtown Stevenson."
The heart of
the issue is what constitutes a cemetery, which the government can
regulate, and a family burial plot, which is not uncommon in Alabama:
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