By CRAIG FREILICH

POTSDAM -- Hundreds of people are upset that statues, flowers, military plaques and pictures that have laid at loved ones’ graves for years have been removed by volunteers acting on behalf of St. Mary’s Parish and the St. Mary’s Cemetery.

"They had volunteers go to the cemetery and remove these things without contacting the families," said Priscilla Stark, one of those who is upset the items were removed without notification or without anyone given a chance to remove the items themselves.

"I don't know how this possibly could be right. People are distraught, crying, sobbing," she said.[img_assist|nid=171764|title=|desc=|link=none|align=right|width=250|height=299]

We attempted to get a response from Rev. Howard Venette, pastor of St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Potsdam, but he was not immediately available for comment.

Word spread fast, and hundreds of people went to the cemetery over the weekend to see what they could do for loved ones’ graves before the cleanup crew resumed their work, and to see what they could retrieve from the pile of items the volunteers had already removed.

Meanwhile, some people are planning to attend a regular meeting of the church’s cemetery committee and the parish council scheduled for tonight at 7 p.m. at St. Mary’s Rectory on Lawrence Avenue across from the church.

Susan Barrett’s Facebook page has filled up with comments, some from as far away as the United Kingdom and Aruba, some of them shared hundreds of times.

“Disgraceful,” “unbelievable” are typical of the comments.

“Thank you St. Mary’s clean-up committee. Our loved ones statues are now broken like our hearts,” one said.

Photos of the collected items on Barrett’s page show metal plaques, one saying "U.S. Veteran," another saying "Vaya Con Dios."

There are small sculptures, arrangements of flowers, flags, crosses, and many other items piled up.

Stark said she knows that there have been rules limiting what could be placed at graves for years, but that they had not been enforced. A former pastor at St. Mary’s, Msgr. William Argy, had given her permission to decorate her mother’s grave at the time, and nothing had changed since then.

Now she has learned that a flyer passed out at church said the spring clean-up “would restore dignity to the cemetery,” she said.

Stark said she spoke with the caretaker, whom she has known for years, to see if she could get an explanation.

She said he told her the plan to remove items was in the flyer that people who attend Mass get at church.

“I told him I don’t go to the Catholic church. He said I should go to church.

“I do not see how this possibly could be right,” she said. “How dare you send a stranger to touch my mother’s stuff,” she said. “How dare you pick up a statue of Jesus and throw it on a pile.

“They should be held accountable. They vandalized those graves. If some teenagers had gone in there at night and stolen a plaque, they would be held accountable to the law,” Stark said.

St. Mary’s Cemetery, off of Pierrepont Avenue (State Rt. 56), is just past the SUNY Potsdam campus, and just north of the old St. Mary’s Cemetery off of Rt. 56 at Garfield Road.