Tallassee family may lose access to backyard

For generations the Creamers have accessed a home on Macedonia Road through property that is now Carrville Cemetery.

But that access has been questioned after the City of Tallassee sent a letter to Benjamin Creamer telling him not to use a “service in the cemetery.”

“We have been using it before the property was a cemetery,” Creamer said. “My aunts and uncles played in that field before it was a cemetery. Even now, anyone who knows us, uses that entrance. My grandparents are buried there, aunts, uncles, cousins too.”

The Creamer home sits on a narrow lot. The home is surrounded by fences on adjoining property allowing someone to walk only from the Macedonia Road side to the cemetery side.

Over the decades the family has constructed storage sheds and garages to store vehicles, tools and a boat. 

“It’s always been accessed from that side,” Creamer said.

According to Creamer the family is always cleaning up the cemetery, picking up flowers and putting them back.

“We are respectful of funerals,” Creamer said. “We stop what we are doing in the back yard and go in the house.”

Access was once questioned when Bobby Payne was mayor. Creamer said neighbors stopped using the cemetery and constructed fences on the cemetery boundary. They can also drive around their homes to the backyard.

Creamer is finalizing ownership of the home in his name after his grandparents died.

The City of Tallassee sent two letters to Creamer dated Dec. 19, signed by assistant to the mayor and cemetery supervisor Wendy Clayton, and Jan. 3, signed by Mayor Sarah Hill. Both state access was no longer granted to the “service road for public use.” The Dec. 19 letter stated cross ties would be installed.

“My children even saw city employees measuring before we got the first letter,” Creamer said.

The family started a petition on change.org and in three days had more than 350 in support of continued access.

Creamer said he can’t get anyone to give further explanation on the matter.

Signs at the cemetery state it closes at dark.

Tallapoosa County tax maps show a right of way for an easement for the paved road within the cemetery but not the dirt service road used by the Creamers. 

“We are looking at maybe getting an attorney,” Creamer said. “We have learned some about prescriptive easements.”

It is something held up by the Alabama Supreme Court in Bull v. Salsman, 435 So. 2d 27, 29 (Ala. 1983). 

Basically it states if someone uses an easement, whether granted or not by a property owner for 20 or more years, “A person can acquire a right to use it in the future.”

The decision by the supreme court follows rulings in 1969 and 1949.  

The rulings involve using private property to gain access to private property and not involving public property.

The city states in its letters it can not find any documentation granting access to the property from the cemetery.  

Creamer said he came home to the house just after he was born 40 years ago. He doesn’t know what to do. 

“I wish the city would talk,” Creamer said. “It is unsafe for us to use the front yard to park as getting on and off of Macedonia Road is dangerous. They fly down the road. If they are going to cut off the access, I wish they would give a deadline to be able to appropriately move things as you can’t really move it around the house.”