NO-HEADLINE

How much is too much, when parents want to mourn a lost daughter? That is the question dividing the small town of Readsboro, Vermont. Tom and Tami DeBlois believe they have stayed within their rights in remembering their baby girl, Jonica Deanna, who died in a car accident more than five years ago. First, they placed a laminated picture of her on her gravestone. Later embellishments included a knee-high ceramic doll, a pink lamb, two flower boxes, a small tree on which ornaments are hung at Christmas, a crouching lion, a painted raccoon, a ceramic rabbit and a wooden carving of Jonica on a swing.

It was when they erected a trellis over the gravestone that the cemetery's board of commissioners said enough was enough and ordered the display be taken down. One said the grave "looks like a circus". The DeBlois are defiant, but in the spirit of compromise, however, they have taken down the trellis. David Usborne - New York