GREENSBORO, N.C. — When Danny Craven talks about his parents, a wide smile comes across his face. His parents had been married for 46 years. Craven lost his dad in 2001 and his mom Gladys passed away just a few years ago.
“What do most moms mean to most people? That’s your mom! She taught me right from wrong,” Craven said.
Craven's parents are buried side by side, just like they spent almost five decades. The couple purchased the gravesite well before they passed away - and Gladys had a marker made after her husband passed.
The marker had both their names, the years they were married, their date of birth, the date of death for Cravens's dad, and an open space on the scroll to be added when Gladys passed.
The marker was a medium brown with gold trim. Craven and his mom were happy with how the marker came out and would regularly go to the gravesite to care for it and pay their respects.
"When my mom and dad bought this (marker), they expected when they died, everything would look like it was supposed to,” Craven said.
Everything was fine until Gladys died a few years ago, and the cemetery ordered the scroll for her date of death and put it on the marker. The scroll was a different color and the font, while similar, was clearly different.
“I wanted things to be right for her. Even though she is not here physically, I still wanted things right,” Craven said.
The scroll with Gladys’s date of death was a dark brown, not a medium brown as the family ordered, and the numbers were not spaced like the others.
Craven reached out to the cemetery on numerous occasions to get it corrected. He says a representative eventually admitted they ordered the scroll from a different company because they no longer work with the previous company.
Craven said he was told they would resolve the issue and make it right. He then waited weeks, and then months but nothing changed.
“Every time I talked to them, they told me they were in the process of ordering it,” Craven said.
After several months with no resolution, Craven contacted the cemetery commission to file a formal complaint, he also contacted WFMY News 2 for some assistance.
“I needed help, and I wanted the proper scroll,” Craven said.
We contacted the cemetery and spoke with a representative in the corporate office. It took a while longer but the scroll was eventually ordered and delivered. The cemetery placed it on the marker and Craven is happy with how it looks.
“They acted like it wasn’t very important, without your (WFMY News 2) help, I’m not sure it would be resolved by now,” Craven said.
Visits to the gravesite are now more peaceful. Craven said it was difficult to visit and look at the marker when the scroll was wrong. Craven visits at least once a week and says the most important thing is that his mom would be happy the marker was fixed.