Let's pretend to do grave maintenance

Some dead Civil War veterans have been taken advantage of. By their protectors.

According to this story,

In 1872, the [Cannon] family built a cemetery near the northeast corner of Mound and 26 Mile [in Macomb County, MI]. In addition to the bodies of Civil War veterans, the daughter of a man who fought in the American Revolution is buried there.

In 1979, Cannon family members and local DAR members signed an agreement by which the Cannon family established a trust fund of about $20,000 of stock and cash. Principal was to be left alone, while interest would be used "for the exclusive and only use of maintaining and covering the upkeep" of the cemetery.

A DAR member went to the district attorney:

Carollyn Andren last year accused fellow DAR members of spending $32,088 in cemetery trust money for members' trips to Washington, D.C., for a chapter luncheon and for other non-cemetery chapter projects in the '80s and '90s. Andren said the non-cemetery spending amounted to more than the $30,069 the chapter spent on maintaining the 1-acre cemetery with graves of Civil War veterans since the mid-1980s.

There will be no prosecution. (1) The statute of limitations has run out on some charges; (2) [DA] "Bittner said Friday that the DAR's non-cemetery expenditures were OK."

There's a nice multipurposing angle, too:

Andren accused chapter members of selling $4,170 of trust stock in 1999 to raise money to pay the $5,520 cost of a DAR luncheon as well as make donations to the Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, the Mt. Clemens' library and other charitable causes.[Emphasis added.]

Aaah, isn't that sweet? The underlying principal was generating so much grave maintenance money it had to be culled and the proceeds spread around town - to charities and agencies where DAR members might be employed either now or in the future. Yay community spirit!

If you think this has nothing to do with your own donations and bequests to other non-profit and ACW organizations, pardon my cynicism.