perhaps the stone cutter was being nice and the niceness was repayed with non-payment.
Could have been. People in that area tend to bend over backwards to help each other because of the heavy influence of religion there. But sometimes people get burned. It took awhile for our family to get a proper headstone on a family grave because so many other expenses had to be covered first. Nevertheless, the bronze temporary headstone worked until we could pay up front. I don’t blame the stonecutter for taking drastic action if the family reneged on a promise. It doesn’t sound like it was possible to file a small claims action since the parents couldn’t be found to serve summons.