Family Member Objects To Uprooted Cemetery
Her family members were moved from what she thought was their final resting place and now one Ooltewah woman wants to make sure this doesn't happen to another family.
The Wells Cemetery contains gravesites that date back to the late 1700s. But the latest chapter in the cemetery's history is a dark one for one woman with family members buried in the cemetery that was named after her family.
"It gives a story of Bonham and Jane Wells and family," Carolyn Tallant says while staring at several documents outlining her family history.
For Tallant this family story dates back more than a hundred years.
"Bonham and Jane Wells came to this area in 1838 with an infant child and probably other children, they died," Tallant says.
When her great-grandparents died, Tallant tells us they were buried in the Wells Cemetery in Ooltewah. NewsChannel 9 first told you about the cemetery last week when we found out a number of grave sites uprooted to make way for a retail shopping center. After our first story last week the Hamilton County Commission put a stop work order on this project on the corner of Mountain View and Snow Hill Roads in Ooltewah.
"Well I was sick at heart I guess you would say. And disappointed that it was allowed." Tallant says.
But according to court documents it was allowed after a judge granted the developer permission to move the cemetery. This came after the developer posted notices in the Chattanooga Times Free Press and only one heir responded. That heir was Carolyn Tallant. The judgement order states "as evidenced by the signature of her counsel below, Ms. Tallant consents to the entry of this order." But Tallant disputes that line in the document.
"I had no opportunity to have any input, I did not give him permission to sign that on my behalf - he never asked me," Tallant says.
And now Tallant is asking for one thing - to walk the property and pick out the cemetery's new location.
"Well I would like them to be aware of what can happen and be concerned that a situation like this cannot arise again in the State of Tennessee," Tallant says.
Tallant says while she has to wait for the cemetery to be relocated she'd like to make sure the remains are in lockable steel containers. She also says she'd like to see the Wells Cemetery put on a map to make sure this doesn't happen again.
After our initial story, the Hamilton County Commission decided the developer was in violation of 2002 ordinance. Commissioner Bill Hullander tells us the developer has to appear at Thursday's Commission meeting and present his future plan for the Wells Cemetery.
