Since 1922, Toledo Memorial Park has served the community as a peaceful place to lay family members to rest. Earlier this year, it extended that offering to four-legged family members as well.
The cemetery opened its 6-acre Reflections Garden at Toledo Memorial Park Especially For Pets in the northwest corner of its lot at 6382 Monroe St., Sylvania.
Toledo Memorial Park president and CEO Jeffery Clegg in the cemetery’s pet burial area. Toledo Free Press photo by Christie Materni
“We’ve had quite a bit of interest from customers at the cemetery wanting to be buried with their pets or have their pets buried here,” said Jeffery Clegg, president and CEO of Toledo Memorial Park.
While laws dictate the cemetery can’t actually bury animals with their human owners, the request did get the cemetery staff’s wheels spinning.
“That started a conversation with our sales team, ‘Is there a market for that? Is that something we should be looking into?’” he said.
“We started an exploratory program looking at that to see if that’s something our customers would be interested in and overwhelmingly, they said yes.”
The pet cemetery officially opened for business in the summer, although it will likely be spring before the grand opening is held as the park is still getting the word out about Reflections Garden. It is set up as a separate entity due to Ohio laws, but will be operated through trust accounts for perpetual care of the grounds.
Clegg said it became clear the pet cemetery was an increasingly important commodity in his business.
“In a lifetime, a person may have five to seven pets,” he said. “They are a part of the family. Obviously because of their much shorter life span, there is a need to take care of these pets when they pass. … We wanted to have that extension of the family taken care of just like we would any of our other customers.”
Although some of the costs associated with having a pet buried are still being adjusted, Clegg said basic packages — which include a marker (with etching), vase, burial space and fees — start at a few hundred dollars.
The Toledo area does have another cemetery that, unlike Toledo Memorial Park, only handles pet burials.
Reith Pet Cemetery, 315 S. McCord Road in Holland, was established in 1964. Almost 5,000 pets have been buried on its 1.6 acres, according to owner Doug Ronau.
At Reith, a small pet may be buried starting at $225.
“(Pet owners) want to be able to come out and visit them and be able to look at a marker just like they would a human grave,” Ronau said.
For more information, contact Toledo Memorial Park, (419) 882-7151, www.toledomemorialpark.com; or Reith Pet Cemetery, (419) 829-2127, www.reithpetcemetery.com
