PAT Pickering of Bulwark was horrified when she visited the local cemetery to tend her parents' grave and found the stone – and many others – flat on the ground.
And when she learned Monmouthshire County Council, not vandals as she suspected, was responsible, there was a further shock – families would have to pay for re-erecting the markers, she was told.
Mrs Pickering's first worry was that elderly people visiting graves in the Chepstow and Bulwark Cemetery would be so shocked by what they saw that they might suffer heart attacks.
" I wish to strongly protest at the despicable way our loved ones' final resting places have been treated," she said, adding "it looks like a battlefield".
When she contacted the council she said she was told the stones had been unsafe and had been lowered to prevent accidents.
"For myself I know that my parents' headstone was not in any way loose or a danger to anyone. If it had been my brother, a builder, would have made it safe," she said – and nobody had told her this was happening.
"However we are fortunate we can afford to reset the stone but what about the elderly on pensions? And what about families who have moved away and do not know what has happened – does the council intend to move the stones and leave unmarked graves?"
She added that if the council thought the stones unsafe they should pay for them to be fixed. "After all we all pay a very high council tax," she said.
Spokesman for Monmouthshire County Council Bernie McGloughlin said the council had been advised to act quickly as a safety measure after somebody had been hurt by a falling headstone in Monmouth.
The council was busy looking through records to make sure everyone concerned was informed of the position. It had not decided quite what it would do if nobody could be traced but other councils in similar situations had allowed stones to stay where they lay.
Erection and maintenance of memorials was always the responsibility of families.