Unusual piece of property for sale in Ozark

OZARK - Tradition is expected to continue on in a local, nearly half-century old cemetery despite the “For Sale” sign that graces the front of one of its memory gardens.

Officials said Woodlawn Memory Gardens, the smaller of several cemeteries owned by a national corporation, has been on the market since the corporation chose to downsize. The name of the corporation was not immediately available.

Century 21/Gateway Realty agent Gene Casey said both old and new business at the cemetery is expected to go on as usual, even if there is no buyer.

“There’s not a thing to worry about. The government requires cemeteries have a fund where so much of every sale remains in that fund and cannot be touched, so the cemetery will continue to be maintained and kept indefinitely,” he said.

And while Casey said he would not turn down a national company interested in the cemetery, he said he has gained some local interest in order to help preserve the cemetery’s history.

Cemetery officials said local owners first sold the cemetery to a national corporation in 1997.

“It would be great for a couple or a group of people to get involved in. The cemetery used to manufacture headstones and vaults there on the property but they sub it out now, but someone could go back and do all that again,” Casey said.

“... I’ve never handled a cemetery before in my four or five years, but like everything else, it’s a business. It’s so much history there, so many loved ones, that even the corporation believed a local owner could better serve there.”