HOUSTON \u2013 A Houston woman says a mistake on her family\u2019s headstone has spiraled into a years-long fight, one that now has her questioning whether her loved ones are even buried where the cemetery claims they are.<\/p>\n
Sabrina Norman has spent the last three years trying to correct the family headstone at Golden Gate Cemetery in north Houston. But instead of answers, she says she\u2019s only found confusion, frustration, and fear.<\/p>\n
Norman says the issue came to light in 2022, shortly after her mother died. When she visited the family plot, something didn\u2019t look right. The names and order of family members engraved on the headstone didn\u2019t match the original records her grandparents paid for decades ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cLeon is supposed to be buried here. His name is supposed to be printed on it here. Ruben Lee is supposed to be here,\u201d Norman said, holding documents from the 1970s that her family kept preserved.<\/p>\n
She says those mismatches made her ask the question no one imagines asking at a cemetery.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to make sure that if I\u2019m coming to visit Aunt Gladys, that Aunt Gladice is here\u2026 I don\u2019t even know if they\u2019re buried here.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Norman, the headstone isn\u2019t just a marker, it\u2019s a map.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe cemetery plots in the description are a roadmap to where the burials are,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
Norman says her grandparents worked hard to afford a marble headstone and six family plots nearly fifty years ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cCan you imagine somebody paying for a marble headstone in 1972? Bringing pennies home\u2026 and they did this so we could all be buried as a family,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Her family paid $569.84 for that headstone in the 70s. She still has the original receipt.<\/p>\n
Today, she says the cemetery offered to replace the headstone but with granite, not marble, the material her family originally selected and paid.<\/p>\n
Norman refuses to accept that.<\/p>\n
\u201cReplace it with the exact same material my family paid for years ago,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m adamant about that.\u201d<\/p>\n
In response to KPRC 2 News SCI Shared Resources, which owns Golden Gate Cemetery, provided the following statement:<\/p>\n
\u201cWe understand how important these matters are to families, and we want to ensure every concern is handled with care. Our records show that the headstone is in its correct location,\u201d a spokesperson said. \u201cGolden Gate Cemetery is an all-granite park, and for that reason, marble headstones are not permitted. We would be glad to speak with her directly to better understand her concerns and work toward a resolution.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not in a good place,\u201d Norman said, fighting back tears. \u201cBecause how dare you?\u201d<\/p>\n
She\u2019s kept pages of correspondence documenting every step she\u2019s taken for the last three years. Still, she says she hasn\u2019t received the correction she\u2019s seeking.<\/p>\n
Norman believes many other families have had issues at the cemetery.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know that leaps and leaps and leaps of individuals have complained,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
KPRC 2 News has reported on complaints involving Golden Gate Cemetery in the past.<\/p>\n
Norman filed complaints with the Texas Funeral Service Commission and the Texas Department of Banking, which regulates pre-sold cemetery plots as financial products. The Department of Banking acknowledged KPRC 2 News\u2019 request for comment but did not provide a statement. The Funeral Service Commission hasn\u2019t responded to our request.<\/p>\n
Norman says she won\u2019t stop fighting until the headstone is corrected exactly as her grandparents paid for and until she knows with certainty that her loved ones are truly resting where the family intended.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything they\u2019ve done\u2026 I question absolutely everything,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2025 by KPRC Click2Houston – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOUSTON \u2013 A Houston woman says a mistake on her family\u2019s headstone has spiraled into a years-long fight,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":53727,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[29782,56,58,57,29780,29781,4791],"class_list":["post-53726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-golden-gate-cemetery","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news","tag-sci-shared-resources","tag-texas-department-of-banking","tag-texas-funeral-service-commission"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53726"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53726\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}