It happened in October of 1991, and the result was the passage of a special law to deal with the young linksmen who couldn’t seem to limit their activity to the golf courses of the area.
A special law was necessary after complaints were brought before the City council by a widower who discovered the youngsters slamming golf balls off his wife’s headstone one evening. It required a new law, because, as the Council’s Diane Boggs put it, "No one had ever thought of it (golfing between the headstones) before."
The law was passed, and if you are weird enough to consider it, don’t. You'll end up in the custody of the Downey police.
Downey Cemetery at Lakewood Boulevard and Gardendale Avenue has served as the final resting place for some of Downey's most notable residents since its founding in 1868.
W.A. Spurlock buried his daughter there, and then donated an acre of land where his neighbors could bury their kin as well.
William H. Pendleton later purchased the cemetery and added to its size.
In the late 1870s the Downey Masonic Lodge located its own graveyard on the eastern boundary of the old graveyard. And in 1889 the Downey Cemetery Association was incorporated.
In 1928 the two parcels were officially combined as a single Los Angeles County cemetery.
Prominent persons buried there include Maston D. Crawford, secretary of the Downey Land Improvement Association which subdivided and sold downtown Downey, and Lucielle Belmont, a Downey woman who was one of the "Early Birds" woman fliers who soloed before 1916.
The cemetery has withstood a trial of another nature recently, following the Cemetery Board's increasing taxes. Several critics suggested "concreting over" the graves and skipping the tax hike.
That wave has also apparently passed, and hopefully Downey's historic dead may now rest in peace.