WESTBOROUGH – Toward the back of Pine Grove Cemetery, there is a section that looks empty.
Take a closer look, and you will find a few grave markers, mostly those of children. The rest of the space contains nearly 700 unmarked graves.
This is the final resting place for patients at the former Westborough State Hospital. When a patient died, and no family came to claim the body, the hospital buried the patient at Pine Grove.
The burials took place from the early 1900s to 1987.
Keeping company with these patients are the poor, the transients, even infants. If there were markers, they have long since vanished.
The Westborough Cemetery Memorial Project Community is raising funds for a memorial to those buried here.
According to committee member Sarah Utka, the names of more than 700 buried at this site have been identified and verified.
Utka said that enough funds have been raised to complete the masonry for the entrance and viewing expanse for the memorial. The next goal – raise enough funds to finish the memorial, which will include the purchase and placement of seven headstones with 100 names listed on each around the perimeter of the memorial.
In addition to the fundraising, the project community holds periodic days of remembrance for the buried at Pine Grove. Once the memorial is erected, public memorial services will be held.
To donate and for updates, visit www.facebook.com/WestboroStateHospitalCemeteryProject; donate by mail to Westborough Cemetery Memorial Project Fund, P.O. 3198, Framingham, MA 01705 (make checks out to Westborough Cemetery Memorial Project Fund; visit the GoFundMe page (www.gofundme.com/2k2n9fgk); or shop Amazon Smile (www.smile.amazon.com when ordering from Amazon; choose Westborough Cemetery Memorial Project Fund as your charitable organization).
For details about the project, visit http://westboroughcemeteryproject.org/index.html.
