PORTSMOUTH, Va. — Mark Hall, an artist and photographer, said there's something special about Portsmouth's Oak Grove Cemetery.
But each time he visits, Hall said he becomes more concerned about the broken and caved in historic graves.
"I don't think these people are resting in peace because their graves are opened up to the world," Hall said.
It's a tough problem. With tombstones dated in the 1800s, Oak Grove Cemetery has seen more than a century of decay and erosion.
Flooding and aging contribute to the decay, and Hall said maintenance and mowing could play factors as well.
"I personally don't think this is anybody's fault," Hall said. "I just think it needs to be looked at with heart, with the history of Portsmouth in mind."
The City of Portsmouth maintains the cemetery. A city statement said workers regularly inspect and fill in the holes, and new graves sink almost every time it rains.
Hall said the exposed graves would concern him if he was a family member of one of the people interred in an open grave.
"If that was one of my relatives I would definitely be angry," he said.
Hall said he would even help fill in some of the graves with dirt if the city allows him. As he doesn't have a family member at Oak Grove Cemetery, Hall said legally he doesn't believe he can touch or help repair the graves now.
"If you give me a wheelbarrow and a shovel and it's okay for me to do, my son and I will come up here on the weekends and fix these graves," he said.
He said the solution is simple, fill the graves in with dirt from nearby piles at the cemetery.
The city said it uses a mixture of clay, soil and sand from Olive Branch Cemetery to fill in some of the graves. The light-colored mixture has been used at some of the graves around the roads at Oak Grove Cemetery.
Hall does have one more concern about how the city is refilling graves. At one of the most recent burial sites, Hall found glass bottles, soles of old shoes, broken plates and other pieces of decades-old trash among the dirt used to fill the grave.
"Where did this trash come from and why is it here?" Hall asked.
The Portsmouth statement said it plans to repair gravestones later this spring and the issue of sunken and exposed graves is common with older cemeteries.