Medal of Honor Recipient’s Gravesite Gone to the Dogs

August 19, 2010 · By Jerry Castillo

Graveyard_Dog_Park_Mace_397x224

MOH grave site and dog park

In the town of Ventura, California a lush, well-manicured hillside patch of green on Main Street just a few blocks east of downtown Ventura has pine, thickets of overgrown junipers and a magnificent view of the Pacific Ocean and Ventura Pier.

The small patch of land is the grave site of a 1860s Army hero awarded the Medal of Honor. Today it is now a popular dog park with dog poop soiling the sacred ground.

Pvt. James Sumner, who was awarded the nation’s highest military honor for gallant actions after a band of Apache Indians kidnapped a settler’s child, died in 1912 and he was buried in what was then St. Mary’s Cemetery.

Most of the flat grave markers have been hauled away, but a few dozen markers still pepper the 7-acre Cemetery Memorial Park that was home to about 3,000 permanent residents.

Retired Marine Sgt. Craig “Gunny” Donor, who served two tours in Vietnam and is a state captain for the Patriot Guard Riders is bent on getting the soldier’s remains moved.

Army records show Sumner was a 28-year-old immigrant from London who led the 1869 chase after the kidnapped child into a remote canyon in the Chiricahua Mountains in southeastern Arizona. There was an ambush and a fierce firefight, but Sumner held off attackers until reinforcements arrived.

President Ulysses S. Grant awarded Sumner the Medal of Honor in 1870. Donor believes the medal is buried with him.

Sumner died in 1912 at age 72. He never married and there are no heirs, Donor said. “I’m trying to get him moved to Bakersfield National Cemetery. He needs to be moved to a place of respect. Cemeteries are solemn places,” said Donor.

But Ventura leaders have so far balked at moving Sumner. “We are treating him pretty darn well, except for the poop,” parks and recreation commissioner Sharon Troll told the Ventura County Star.

The commission voted July 21 to postpone for two months Donor’s request to unearth Sumner. Park commissioners have told Donor they’re committed to a long-delayed effort to commemorate the area pioneers and military dead in the park.

“He has no family, no one else to stand up for him, except for his brothers and sister in arms,” Donor said.

Editor’s note:

Thank God for people like “Gunny” Donor for doing the right thing.

If you wish to express your views to the City Manager of Ventura here is their contact information.

City Hall
501 Poli Street, PO Box 99
Ventura, California 93002-0099
(805) 654-7740
email: citymanager@cityofventura.net

Resource: excerpts from AP

13 Responses

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    August 20th, 2010 at 5:00 PM

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  3. david michel

    August 24th, 2010 at 6:11 PM

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    people are stupid

  4. steve schleder

    August 26th, 2010 at 6:16 PM

    4

    The City Manager of San Buenaventura, CA, is running around the country trying to do damage control on one of the worst mass grave desecrations in the history of our country.
    All headstones (600) were removed from the 3,000 local American pioneer graves and thrown off a cliff up in the hills by the City. The cemetery was then called a “passive park.” (?).
    “They forgot to remove the bodies!”

    If you were to remove all the headstones and flush markers from the graves at any cemetery, would it not be a cemetery? In a cemetery, people are buried in the ground.

    St. Mary’s, Presbyterian and the Hebrew cemeteries are now a ‘dog’ park because the City has made it so and after repeated requests, have refused to do anything to enforce the dog ‘leash’ problem let alone even consider the two organized attempts by the local pioneer descendants to restore the cemetery, and to abid by all state and federal cemetery law.

    When 150 year old local pioneer graves can have their headstones stolen by the City and ok’ed by the same City Council, you have to realize that the scum in our society has risen to the top and now calls themselves the our elected leaders.

    The City was charged to the upkeep of the cemetery and stopped maintenance to merit the coming mass grave desecration. It is against the law what the City did. We have 81 total veterans from the Civil War, the Indian Wars, the Spanish American War and WWI buried here, amongst the 3,000 civilian graves, not just one MoH recipient.

    ….The City of Ventura got so bold at grave desecration, they exported their talent to the City of Whittier, CA and their Mt. Olive Quaker and Broadway Cemeteries, renamed Founder’s ‘Memorial’ Park with it’s now 2,380 desecrated graves (about 65 veterans desecrated graves). Another dog park: http://tinyurl.com/yzp4gb7

    And as soon as they could, they went down to the Calvary Catholic Cemetery at the invite of the City of San Diego, CA and with the help of the Catholic Archdiocese of San Diego desecrated another 4,000 known graves there: http://tinyurl.com/dypxxn
    65+veterans in desecrated graves: http://freepages.genealogy.roo…Calvary/Veterans.htm

    If you include the 3,850 desecrated graves beneath the Holy Cross School next to the San Buenaventura (Ventura) Mission on Main St.(just dumb old native American graves), the City of Ventura has their desecration fingerprints on a whooping total of 13,230 desecrated graves throughout Southern California.

    These were tired and war torn Americans mostly, leaving behind the horrors of the Civil War and moving to California for a fresh start and a better life.

    Little did they dream that their very graves would be hunted down by the City of Ventura and robbed of all dignity and respect.

    There are 3 city governments and 2 Catholic Archdioceses, here in California, that DO NOT want anyone to know what has happened to our pioneer Americans and their graves.

    For those of you active or retired that would like to join in on the cemetery restoration cause please see contacts:

    steve_schleder@restorestmarys.org

    http://restorestmarys.org/Contact_us.html

    http://www.restorestmarys.org

    http://www.facebook.com/#!/gro…7281390633742&ref=ts

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    September 17th, 2010 at 11:38 PM

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  10. Lifer

    October 1st, 2010 at 2:11 PM

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    Leave it to Californians to be so disrespectful of our heroes. Shame on them.

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