CEMETERY GUIDELINES

St. Stephens Lutheran Church – MS

2304 Springs Road

Hickory, North Carolina

Ownership 

1.    The St. Stephens Lutheran Church Cemetery is owned and operated by the St Stephens Lutheran Church – LCMS (SSLC-MS) for the benefit of the membership of said congregation.

2.    All gravesites remain the property of St Stephens Lutheran Church. No gravesite may be transferred to another individual, either by word or by payment without permission of the Board of Finance & Facility of SSLC-MS.

3.    Only members of SSLC-MS are entitled to purchase and be buried in an individual gravesite after payment of $400.00. Plot owners who are no longer members of the SSLC-MS will pay $1,300.00. These funds shall be placed in a perpetual care fund for the cemetery. No more than one grave site per household member will be made available to any individual.

4.    Gravesite holders who no longer intend to use the gravesite, which they hold by receipt, shall return the receipt for the said gravesite to SSLC-MS. SSLC-MS guarantees a refund payment.

Restrictions

5.    No grave mounds or gravesite enclosures shall be permitted and no grave shall be opened upon said property except in the manner and at the places as shall be approved by the Board of Finance & Facility of the SSLC-MS.

6.    No monumental work, tombstone, marker, vault, fences, memorial, mound, or other object of any kind protruding above the surface of the ground may be erected on gravesite with exception of built in vases. No hedges, plants, trees or flowers may be planted on or removed from gravesite or cemetery.

7.    No trinkets, statutes, pictures, etc., should be left on headstones. If these appear, they will be removed and discarded by the groundskeeper.

8.    SSLC-MS will not be responsible for broken headstones, vases, etc. whether caused by vandalism or maintenance work.

9.    Flowers are to be set on headstones only. All others will be removed by the end of their season (poinsettias, lilies, etc.) or the groundskeeper will discard them.

10. Lights and luminaries must remain flush against headstone or they will be removed.

11. After the graveside ceremony, the family is responsible of removing any flower arrangements left in a week’s time.

12. Graves in the Springs Road Cemetery, which an interment has been made, may be marked only by a flat tablet or grave marker, set flush with the sod, of the size, type, and material approved by SSLC-MS Board of Finance & Facility.

13. A copy of the purchase agreement and rules and regulations shall be given to the purchaser with a signed copy to be placed in the cemetery files.

Revised January 2026