Roadside memorials: Distraction or dedication?

A morning in January 2011 was sunny but cold when Richard Baker Jr. and his companion, Joyce Talley, left her Dover home, heading south toward Sussex County.

Their first stop was in Milford so Baker's car could be dropped off for service at the I.G. Burton dealership. Driving a loaner — a white Chrysler Town & Country minivan — Baker dropped Talley off at her second home in Rehoboth Beach.

From there, Baker, 50, headed west on Route 9, en route to Georgetown, where he owned Collector's Corner Antique Shop.

He never made it to work.

Just after he passed Cool Springs Road, Baker, for some unexplained reason, crossed the center line and hit a tractor-trailer head-on. The tanker, driven by George Cherrey, 55 of Baltimore, belonged to Tilley Chemical Company.

Both the tractor-trailer and the minivan burst into flames. Cherrey, although injured, was able to escape the inferno.

A Delaware State Trooper arrived at the scene and was able to remove Baker from the vehicle.

He was pronounced dead a short time later.

Friends and family immediately decided to build a memorial at the scene of the crash. The white cross has his name and is filled with colorful artificial flowers.

"It was just something I wanted to do to memorialize him in some way," Talley said. "He was a good person and he was taken from this earth too early."

"That person's last breath"

Streets and roads of Delaware are dotted with spontaneous, makeshift memorials to commemorate the sudden loss of friends or family.

Some include the full name of the victim and the date they died. Others only include a first name, while some roadside memorials are done in anonymity.

"The main thing is, it marks the location of that person's last breath," said Jeanne C. Finley, a California artist who did a 2013 roadside memorials exhibition at the Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts.

Despite the well-meaning attempts to honor a departed loved one, there is a legal detail that is often overlooked.

"It is against state code to construct roadside memorials," said James Westhoff, spokesman for the Delaware Department of Transportation.

The concern — roadside memorials can become a safety issue if they are prominent enough to distract passing motorists. And, in a public right-of-way, the memorials can be an inconvenience when crews mow the grass along roadside shoulders.

"They can be a safety hazard," Westoff said.

"This is where it happened"

With the loss of a family member or friend, grief is often accompanied by a desire to do something in the person's memory.

For some, it means sending flowers to a church or funeral home. Others prefer a charitable donation in the name of the deceased. And many would want an opportunity to offer condolences to the family.

"It is part of people's need to recognize and memorialize that person," said Dorothy Greet of Lewes, a retired United Church of Christ minister who also served as chaplain at Beebe Medical Center.

When a death is sudden and unexpected, the reaction often is to create — or contribute to — some sort of a memorial for the departed friend or relative.

And, if the death is the result of a highway accident, the inclination might be to create a roadside memorial at the site of the crash.

"The memorial shows, this is where it happened, this is where the spirit left the body," Greet said.

An alternative

The state's alternative is the Delaware Highway Memorial Garden at a rest area on Route 13 in Smyrna. Grieving friends and family can order an engraved brick free of charge. The garden, open since 2007, contains nearly 700 memorial bricks representing traffic victims from across the state.

An average of 113 people die annually in crashes on Delaware roads.

"We do try and offer an alternative to roadside memorials," Westoff said.

Despite the prohibition, grieving friends and family continue to construct makeshift memorials. And many of the memorials are maintained for indefinite periods thereafter.

Baker’s memorial still stands, more than six years after the accident. Talley said it is maintained by Baker's ex-wife and stepson.

The roadside memorial in Harbeson is just a typical example of many.

Throughout Sussex County, other memorials exist, with some containing names and the date of death, while others are anonymous.

Memorials pop up all around

On Sand Hill Road a few miles outside Georgetown, a roadside memorial is a testament to a horrific crash that involved three members of the same Milton family.

On the evening of May 27, 2004, Noel Figueroa, 18, was driving a 1992 Ford Aerostar minivan, apparently on the way to Georgetown with two siblings, Christian, 16, and Brisa, 12.

Rounding a curve, Noel Figueroa lost control, left the road and snapped a utility pole on impact.

Noel and Christian Figueroa were taken to the hospital with minor injuries, but younger sister, Brisa, died at the scene.

The roadside memorial for Brisa Figueroa also features a white cross, colorful flowers and a very permanent concrete marker showing her name, date of birth and death.

A short distance away is another memorial with flowers, stuffed animals and a white cross. There is no name on the memorial, although it is in proximity to a crash that killed Brandon Robertson, 21, of Milton on May 29, 2014.

In Millsboro, an elaborate roadside memorial on West Monroe Street was constructed in honor of Darrin T. Gibbs, 30, who died Nov. 16, 2016 of a gunshot wound. Cpl. Gary Fournier, State Police spokesman, said the assailant has not yet been identified.

"It just doesn't meet the needs"

The roadside memorial phenomenon so fascinated California artist Finley and her collaborator John Muse that they produced a 2013 exhibition at the Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts that featured examples they found in New Castle County.

One of the memorials that remains etched in Muse's memory is a simple cross on the shoulder of Interstate 95 near Newport, Delaware. The victim of the December 2003 crash was Terry "Silk" Alls, a popular 22-year-old Newark resident who was a star basketball player at Salem Community College.

Muse said Alls had been known for his mentoring work with children and young adults and, after his death, friends and family also started a basketball league in his honor.

The SILK Basketball League in Wilmington now has about 300 members.

"It was Terry's favorite sport and his favorite community service," Muse said.

Though the basketball league was created in his memory, friends and family also felt the need to build a memorial on I-95.

"In many instances, it is the location of the death that is being memorized as much as the person," said Finley.

And, though Delaware has built a memorial garden for crash victims, Finley said it is not enough for some remaining friends and family.

"It is a nice (memorial) site but it just doesn't meet the needs," she said.

For many, "it was the location of death that needed to be memorialized," Finley said.

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