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Volunteers seek to restore Charleroi Cemetery

By Pat Cloonan pcloonan@heraldstandard.Com 5 min read
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Rebecca Devereaux|Herald-Standard

Unmaintained gravestones on the Charleroi Cemetery grounds are shown in this picture. Volunteers have taken up the task of cleaning up the 116-year-old graveyard.

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Rebecca Devereaux|Herald-Standard

A trash can overflowed on the grounds in Charleroi Cemetery.

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Rebecca Devereaux|Herald-Standard

A broken television set sits under a tree on the grounds in Charleroi Cemetery.

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Rebecca Devereaux|Herald-Standard

A faded sign marks the entrance to Charleroi Cemetery off of Deambroggi Road in Fallowfield Township.

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Rebecca Devereaux|Herald-Standard

Unmaintained gravestones are a common theme in the Charleroi Cemetery in Fallowfield Township.

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Rebecca Devereaux|Herald-Standard

A heap of abandoned trash sits in the corner of the Charleroi Cemetery grounds.

Charleroi area volunteers have joined forces to restore a long-neglected cemetery off Deambroggi Road in Fallowfield Township.

“We have family up there,” said Stacey Bongiorno Wolfe, an accounting clerk for the Foundation at California University of Pennsylvania who serves as president of the new Charleroi Cemetery Association. “Both sides (of my family) have relatives up there.”

As do association Secretary Jodi Pergola-Yerkey and Treasurer JoAnn E. Pavlic, a Charleroi area funeral director, as well as others who are helping to restore the 116-year-old cemetery, incorporated in 1901 but fallen on hard times and other misfortune in recent decades.

“The loved ones deserve better,” Wolfe said. “The veterans deserve better,” referring to the many military graves there, at least one of which is of a Civil War veteran laid to rest in 1904, in a time when only wooden crosses were used, while another is the final resting place of the area’s first serviceman killed in action in Vietnam.

Others involved include Pergola-Yerkey’s brother Chuck Pergola, with a quarter-century of experience as a Lock 4 volunteer firefighter, and Mon Valley Regional Chamber of Commerce President Jamie Protin.

Wolfe said Protin found he had too many obligations to serve on the association board as its vice president, but “He is going to help us as far as fund-raising and getting the word out.”

And that includes the word that the association soon will be able to accept donations.

“We have a lot of families who want to donate,” the association president said.

And the hope that other things will fall into place.

“We just filed our state papers a few weeks ago, and we’re working on our federal next,” Wolfe said, referring to the need for a 501(c) 13 status for a non-profit cemetery. “That might take 4-6 weeks.”

Securing a non-profit status on all levels will help the association secure funds it might not get otherwise, as Wolfe found out a year and a half ago when John Deere turned down her request for financial help.

“I’m looking into grants also because (Cemetery Road) needs done desperately,” Wolfe said. “Fallowfield Township refused to take over the road. They might do it now because we’re nonprofit.”

Fundraising has been going on, including plans for a zombie-themed cash bash.

“It is going to be one of our bigger fundraisers to take care of cutting the grass,” Wolfe said.

The association has an Employer Identification Number reflecting a non-profit status but is waiting for paperwork to go along with it so it can open a bank account for donations.

The need is wide-ranging, including the grass cutting and repairs though a former owner of the cemetery, Frank Rauchfuss Jr., was hired to help out.

“His father was one of the original owners,” Wolfe said. “He is doing well, beyond what we’ve been paying him.”

There are quite a few problems to resolve.

“A lot of the records are missing or destroyed,” the association president said.

Then there’s the money needed for a perpetual care fund required by the Pennsylvania Real Estate Commission.

“We will not be allowed to sell plots until we raise $25,000,” Wolfe said. “We can bury people, we can open and close graves.”

After that fund is established, it will get 15 percent of proceeds from each plot sale.

Problems came to Charleroi Cemetery after a series of transactions that had it go through a number of owners, including most recently Joseph Minkovich, 49, of Charleroi.

“When (Frank Rauchfuss Sr.) died, his shares were split up between his five kids,” Wolfe said. “(Frank Jr.) originally sold it to another gentleman.”

It later was sold to Minkovich.

According to an affidavit filed by Charleroi Regional Police in the fall of 2015, Minkovich “illegally took money placed into an account over many years by family members of the deceased for the care and maintenance of the Charleroi Cemetery.”

He pleaded guilty in Washington County Court of Common Pleas on Dec. 1, 2016, to theft by unlawful taking, two counts of theft by deception and two counts of knowingly accepting property illegally in 2010.

Judge Gary Gilman placed him into a four-year Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition program and ordered him to pay $8,750 in restitution as well as other costs. Court records show he has paid the restitution payment and all but $1,108 of a total obligation of $12,516, or about half of what he initially was charged with stealing.

District Attorney Eugene A. Vittone’s office prosecuted the case, which originally involved allegations that Minkovich stole $28,000 from a perpetual fund meant for care of graves in the Charleroi Cemetery.

Wolfe said the association was expecting that restitution payment this week.

In March, the Pennsylvania Real Estate Commission levied a $2,000 civil penalty against Minkovich’s Washington County Charleroi Cemetery Company for acting in the capacity of a cemetery company without being registered.

Other needs at the cemetery include a new garage for storing equipment and a memorial gazebo that would replace a chapel formerly found on the cemetery grounds.

“All that’s left is a foundation and some posts,” Wolfe said about the chapel. She hoped the association could get some help with construction from an Eagle Scout project or students at nearby Mon Valley Career & Technology Center.

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