A Colorado cemetery is forcing a family to remove an “inappropriate” tombstone featuring an image of a raised middle finger.
The tombstone has been at Evergreen Cemetery in Colorado Springs for five years, marking the final resting place of brothers Timothy and Ryan Geschke. Midtna’s sisters, Heidi and Holly Geschke, were recently informed that the headstone’s designer told him to cover up images of raised middle fingers on the headstone with black tape.
“This is a symbol of Geschke’s love and blood through him,” Holly Geschke told KOAA.
Now, the cemetery manager is telling the family that the tombstone must be removed.
According to the rules of the cemetery, the tombstone cannot be profane or offensive to the general public. “No words or images may be engraved on a monument that would be considered profane or offensive to the general public,” state the cemetery’s current rules.
Holly Geschke said The Independent that she was not asked to sign a contract when the tombstone was erected and that day no one told her that the design violated any rules of the cemetery.
She said the only instructions her family was given at the time were that the middle finger incisions could not be facing a nearby street.
Headstone marking the graves of Timothy and Ryan Geschke in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Evergreen Cemetery management has requested that the headstone — erected five years ago — be removed because it contains images of raised middle fingers. The Geschke family says it plans to fight the removal order (Holly Geschke)
When KOAA reporters asked the cemetery’s manager, Cheryl Godbout, how many complaints she had received, she said the number of complaints was “irrelevant, because once I was aware of it, then I had to do something.”
“It wouldn’t have been good of me to know about it, to know that it violates our rules and to ignore our rules,” she said.
The Geschke sisters disagree that the images are offensive enough to warrant removal.
“This was created with so much love and respect and loyalty to our brothers,” Holly Geschke told KOAA. “This is speaking for the character not who they were, but who we are as a family.”
The manager said that the family does not have to remove the headstone themselves and that the cemetery will store the marker for the family.
The sisters told KOAA that they do not plan to remove or redo the tombstone to bring it into line with the cemetery’s rules.
“They are in a resting place and now here we are being asked to disturb their resting place,” said Holly Greschke. “It’s mind blowing,”
She said her family plans to fight the removal order, and if necessary, move her siblings out of the cemetery altogether.
“These are my brothers, I’m not going to let this go,” she said The Independent. “Whether it ends in our favor or not, we’re not backing down on this. We’re making noise for the boys.”