Candy Warden and the other volunteer caretakers of Howard County’s historic pet cemetery worried something was afoot.
They had found the graves of nine people dug up and moved at Rosa Bonheur Memorial Park, but why?
An anonymous corporation had bought the famous little burial grounds, once billed as the only place in the world where people could be interred beside their pets. Here lies the Baltimore zoo’s first elephant, Mary Ann; the old Bullets basketball mascots; and all those good boys.
The volunteers worried that the graves were exhumed to make way for development. Now, finally, the owner’s plans are emerging.
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Documents obtained by The Baltimore Banner show the owner wants to build a gas station and convenience store at the front of the cemetery along U.S. Route 1 in Elkridge. The plans also call for 20 townhomes along the back of the cemetery on Dorsey Road.
The Banner had sought the development plans for five months, but the State Highway Administration declined requests under the Maryland Public Information Act. The agency reversed course after The Banner appealed to the state’s public access ombudsman.
The plans also show a medical office on one side of the cemetery and a car wash on the other.
“We want them to leave the whole cemetery alone,” said Warden, president of the volunteer Rosa Bonheur Society Inc.
One cemetery owner after another has tried to build on these grounds, she said.
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“It needs to stop,” she said. “The people who have loved ones at the Rosa Bonheur Memorial Park have been abused by developers for over 37 years.”
The cemetery traces to 1935, when Edward Gross, the criminal court clerk for Baltimore, was bereft over the death of his dog. Without a suitable burial site, he interred his companion in a cemetery for people. The experience inspired him to open Rosa Bonheur Memorial Park, named for the 19th-century French painter of animals.
Here in the countryside southwest of Baltimore, pets were interred with the pageantry of a hearse and silk-hatted mortician.
Among the famous dead are Gypsy Queen the horse. She traveled 11,356 miles under pack and saddle to reach every U.S. state and won fame for her endurance. She shares this eternal home with a Doberman pinscher named Rex, whose growl alerted U.S. Marines to a surprise Japanese attack during World War II. Dearly departed Pete the pigeon drank coffee at the breakfast table and became a Depression-era celebrity in South Baltimore. When he died at age 25, the headlines read, “World’s Oldest Pigeon.”
By the 1950s, the grounds held almost 3,000 pets, with owners coming from as far away as Florida and North Dakota. The plaques read with names such as Duke, Lady and Patches. Here’s where the late Gov. William Donald Schaefer laid to rest his lab Willie II.
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In later years, the cemetery fell into neglect, with the owner accused of fraud and mismanagement. The cemetery records were lost, and the burials ended around 2003. Pet lovers formed the Rosa Bonheur Society to watch over the grounds.
There are people buried here, too. Among them are Russell Allen’s grandparents, Ernest and Annie Bowen. Allen lives nearby and would visit their graves from time to time. The two were buried toward the front of the cemetery — around the area of the planned gas station.
In late 2023, the volunteers found the grounds disturbed. Allen hurried over and saw someone had dug up his grandparents’ graves and moved their headstones to the back of the cemetery. It’s presumed their bodies were reburied there, too.
“A development company believing they can just dig anyone up and move them, just to build, is a little outrageous,” he said.
Allen said his family has brought the matter to attorneys.
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“We’re not going to stop until it’s resolved in a manner that we’re happy with,” he said.
Maryland law generally requires permission from a state’s attorney to dig up a grave and only for a limited number of reasons, including reburial. The Howard County State’s Attorney’s Office approved the disinterments in August 2023.
A company called Memorial LLC bought the cemetery for $100,000 in 2016. The Rosa Bonheur volunteers believe Howard County developer Mark Levy controls Memorial. His companies own land on both sides of the cemetery. A deed shows Memorial LLC transferred a strip of land from the cemetery to one of his companies for $0. Levy has not responded to phone calls or emails.
The uncertainty around Rosa Bonheur has led the volunteers to Annapolis to seek greater protections for the dead.
Calling itself the Maryland Cemetery Legislative Advocates, the group has proposed a raft of reforms. One bill would prohibit cemetery owners from selling graveyards without the approval of state cemetery regulators. Another bill would establish a voluntary fund for the upkeep of abandoned cemeteries. Yet another bill would consider a state inventory of cemeteries.
“If we’re successful in all of our bills,” organizer David Zinner said, “the state will have the tools to deal with situations like Rosa Bonheur.”
