Private Cemetery Vandalized Almost 100 Grave Markers At Peone Cemetery Ripped Up, Tipped Over, Strewn About Grounds

After his wife of 52 years died in September, Frank Lehman buried her in Peone Cemetery and marked her grave with a temporary homemade cross and a bouquet of pink silk flowers.

Lehman went to visit his wife’s gravesite Sunday, as he often does.

The site was a mess. Vandals had pulled the white cross from the ground, strewn several of the silk flowers around the grass and scrawled “666” in the dirt of the fresh plot.

“I see one of my markers is gone,” Lehman said as he walked into the small cemetery. “I don’t know what in the hell’s the matter with people. I’d like to catch somebody doing this. I’d bury him right here.”

The marker on Lotus Lehman’s grave was one of about 100 vandalized at the cemetery, set off Bruce Road near Day-Mount Spokane Road.

“It was bad,” caretaker Harry Turner said after he saw the cemetery Sunday. “I don’t know how they ever tipped them over like that.”

The private cemetery has about 1,200 graves, Turner said. The first burial occurred in 1893.

The Peone Cemetery board of directors will discuss a possible reward and how to fix the cemetery at its regular meeting tonight, Turner said.

The Spokane County Sheriff’s Department received a report of vandalism at the cemetery on Sunday afternoon, although it’s not been determined when it happened.

“It’s not an uncommon occurrence to have headstones toppled,” Sgt. Bill Rose said. “It actually happens more than you’d like to think. In this kind of situation, it’s usually young kids. It’s a shame, but it happens.”

It’s the first time that anything like this has happened at Peone Cemetery, Turner said.

“We had one tipped over once,” he said.

This time, huge stones were tipped over, several from the early 1900s. Flowers were ripped out of the ground. The stone of Anna Halderman - who was born May 9, 1819, and died April 29, 1902 - was knocked down. So was the stone of Napoleon Davis, who died Oct. 23, 1909.

Lehman walked around the cemetery Sunday afternoon, around the toppled markers and littered flowers, and pointed out markers of old friends.

He and his wife had planned to be buried in Peone Cemetery for 25 years.

“We just like it,” said Lehman, 75. “It’s kind of a secluded place. I think it’s pretty.”

Lehman offered a reward of $100 for any information leading to the vandals.

As he walked, Lehman looked for his wife’s missing cross, which he made.

He finally found it beneath a bush in front of the cemetery’s gates.

“That’s it there,” Lehman said with a sigh. “That’s my cross.”

He put it in the trunk of his car. Lehman said he’ll repaint the white cross before putting it back onto his wife’s grave.

He plans to install a permanent stone in the near future: a flat bronze marker with etched with a mountain scene.

“You’re going to get me to bawling,” he said after talking about his wife. “She’s pretty hard to forget.”