A missing gravestone in Presque Isle Township cemetery haunts a family tradition

Connie Heidt of Palm City, Florida could not believe her eyes when she visited the final resting place of her husband Charles W. Heidt recently in the Presque Isle Township cemetery:only to discover his gravestone was gone. Connie’s husband was buried next to his father, William Heidt in 1983. He was only 46 at the time of his death. His love of sailing gave her the idea to have a sailboat etched onto the stone and she wondered if the artwork prompted some thief to steal it. Connie grew up in Detroit and moved to Plymouth when she married Charles.

THE HEIDT FAMILY visits the area every summer, gathering at the Fireside Inn. Her own visits began with her honeymoon in 1959, but her husband’s family has been coming to the Grand Lake landmark for many decades. According to her son, Robert Heidt, the family has been coming to the Fireside Inn since 1917. Connie noted that, “On Charles’ mother’s side of the family, the Hohntoons actually date back earlier than that, when the resort first opened in 1908. It’s really an incredible family tradition.” Laurie Van Schoten, manager of the Fireside Inn, said, “Charles Heidt worked here as a chore boy in his teens when his family came up from Plymouth each summer.”

“IT’S SO SAD for a stone to just disappear like that because Connie and her kids continued to come up every single year after her husband passed away,” she said. “They would go out to the cemetery so the kids could put a rock and a picture on the tombstone.” She continued, “It was quite devastating for the family, everyone seemed to be in shock over the whole thing. That a small, closely-knit community like Presque Isle would experience such an act of vandalism is really sad.” “We have had reports of other things missing periodically at the cemetery and I’m assuming some ‘bad apples’ are responsible for such incidents,” said Presque Isle Township Supervisor Peter Pettalia. “I can’t imagine anybody in their right mind stealing from a gravesite,” said Pettalia, who also serves as the caretaker for the facility. “I have talked to other cemetery people in the area and they say they have lost things over the years, too.”

In this regard, Chris Flewelling from the Presque Isle County Sheriff’s Department reported that, “We get a couple calls every year of a similar nature from cemeteries around the county.” Pettalia added that, “I heard people say they have seen some college kids with a grave marker in their dorm room before. I don’t think it’s satanic or anything along those lines, I just think it’s some dumb kids being mischievous.” “We had a tremendous wind storm go through here in November and then got hit with another one in December which created a huge mess in the cemetery,” said Pettalia. Asked if the stone may have gotten damaged or lost in the storm debris, Van Schoten said, “I don’t think so, that particular gravesite did not seem to be affected by any falling trees.”

KELLEY HEIDT of Atlanta, Georgia talked about her father-in-law on the telephone. “He was a bank president and a powerful man with a lot of influence, but he was also a very simple person. He didn’t want anything fancy for his grave and Presque Isle was the place he loved.R

21; She said, “The picture of Dad we have on our wall at home is of him and his sailboat on Grand Lake. And every single one of us in the family has had our honeymoon there.” “It was a heartache and so upsetting to have this happen,” she said, “We would go every year to clean up the grave and leave pictures of the grand kids but we just couldn’t do it this year because we felt like he wasn’t there.” “It’s always been in my mind to add another stone to his plot saying, ‘Gone Sailing’ because that was heaven-on-earth to him,” Connie said.

She continued, “I thought it was kind of strange that we would have a hurricane called Charley down here in Florida at this particular time because my husband was often known by that name.” The family requests that anyone with information about the missing headstone to contact the Fireside Inn. Connie said, “I would be so relieved just to have it returned to its rightful place, no questions asked.”