Community members are rallying behind Kalispell’s Conrad Memorial Cemetery, offering their plot deeds to help resurrect stolen burial records.  

The neighborly effort comes after crucial documents needed to operate the cemetery vanished along with James “Jim” Korn, the longtime groundskeeper of the historic burial ground, and his son and assistant, Kevin Korn.    

Stolen records included cemetery plot maps and plot sale index cards, which indicated which plots were available and which were already sold. The loss means the cemetery is stuck in limbo. Families looking to buy plots for their loved ones are being turned away because cemetery employees don't know which are already sold.  

The C.E. Conrad Cemetery Association, which owns and operates the burial ground, sued the Korns for taking off with a trove of documents, including phones and computers. Attorneys representing the association filed a civil proceeding against the Korns in Flathead County Justice Court on Aug. 13.  

The whereabouts of the Korns and the records remain unknown.  

Since the Daily Inter Lake published an article on their disappearance, the cemetery has fielded a flood of calls from people willing to send the deeds and receipts to their plots so cemetery staff can start determining which land is sold, according to newly hired sexton Jeff Epperly. 

“The community has been incredible,” Epperly said. 

Anyone who buys a plot at the cemetery is issued their own deed and receipt. 

“The more I have of those, the more I know what is available and what is not available,” Epperly said. 

Evergreen resident Barb Domgard reached out to the Inter Lake looking for reassurance that she would still be interred beside her family.   

She has a copy of the deed for her plot. Her husband is dead, and she plans to be interred alongside him in a double urn. The urn won’t be taken to the cemetery until that time.  

Jim Korn helped her buy the plot a few years ago and she remembered him being very helpful. Korn, who is in his 90s, had also been her mother-in-law's dentist decades ago, she said.  

Domgard has lived in Evergreen for 40 years and was shocked to hear that Korn had vanished. She was also confused why the cemetery hadn’t gone public sooner. 

“It is the strangest thing I’ve ever heard in my life,” Domgard said. “Why did it take so long to tell us about this going on?”  

Barbara Fopp was shocked to hear Korn disappeared too. She hadn't spoken to him in about six years but always thought he was nice and accommodating.  

Fopp sent her deed information to the Inter Lake in hopes it could be useful for the cemetery. She lives in California now but grew up in the Flathead Valley and plans to be cremated and buried at Conrad Cemetery in the same plot as her parents. 

To better accommodate customer calls, the cemetery’s home base is relocating to a rented-out room in the basement of the Northwest Montana History Museum. Epperly plans to scan copies of deeds people bring in in an effort to rebuild.   

The office where the records were stolen was tucked on the ground floor of a yellow cottage by the burial ground’s gated entrance. 

There, Korn oversaw cemetery operations for over two decades. He met with families looking to bury loved ones or people reserving plots so they could eventually be buried beside their kin. 

“Jim did everything, I mean everything,” Epperly said. “He was very gracious and kind.” 

But Korn was old school, and everything was handwritten, Epperly said.  

To keep the cemetery from finding itself in the same situation again, Epperly said all business is moving online.  

Cemeteries often maintain records of plot ownership and interments with the county, but Conrad Cemetery does not.  

Epperly said he is pondering recording the deeds with the Flathead County clerk. That way there’d be another layer of protection if anything were to happen to the cemetery’s records again.  

“We shouldn’t be having these issues, really,” he said. 

While the community has stepped up to help, rebuilding plot maps for the 104-acre cemetery will be challenging.  

While looking out over the grounds, Epperly said he is left wondering just how many empty lots have been sold.   

“It’s alarming,” he said.  

Reporter Jack Underhill can be reached at 758-4407 and [email protected].