“I assumed that I was going to die there,” Rhea Holmes — who also received help from police — said, referring to the graveyard
NEED TO KNOW
- A woman was sleeping in the cemetery where her husband was buried after she lost her home
- Rhea Holmes, 55, said she didn’t tell anyone she was homeless because she “didn’t want people to worry”
- A local police officer heard about Rhea’s situation and provided life-changing help, in addition to a local college, which offered her housing
A woman experiencing homelessness was living in the cemetery where her late husband was buried, until a police officer stepped in. He, along with a local college, then provided aid to the woman at a time when she needed it most.
Rhea Holmes and her husband of 26 years, Eddie Holmes, made an offer on a modest house in Syracuse in 2020. Not long after, Eddie died of a sudden heart condition, and Rhea, 55, instead used the money they were going to spend on the house to buy Eddie a burial plot at Oakwood Cemetery, CBS News and Syracuse.com reported.
Eddie’s death sent Rhea, who worked as an administrative assistant at a hospital, into a depression, causing her to lose her job, and she was eventually evicted from her home — which is when she started sleeping by her husband’s grave…