Cemetery Restoration - Old Cemeteries
07. Repair a group of fallen Box Tombs.
08.
Is
the mosses and other plant growth that live on the stone harmful for the stones?
09.
The
Anatomy of a restoration - restoring a completely demolished stone broken into
hundreds of pieces.
10. An
ongoing restoration effort at Jackson College Cemetery.
11. Trees
in the cemetery - shelter foe or friend?
12.
The Tornados of 27 April 2011
- a damage assessment and repair progress to certain cemeteries in its path.
13. Cleaning & Sealing an old cracked stone to
prevent breakup & also prevent water from seeping thru it too
excessively.
It is my wish the following practical treatise on
memorial stone restoration will be helpful to those that has the tools, interest and a little savvy to tackle a project requiring the maintenance of
old cemetery including repairing the memorials stones. There is a critical need for this effort
given the rate of decay and destruction of the old memorials in our historic
cemeteries. In many cases the
records on these stones represent the last surviving records of an early settler
and these historical cemetery records deserve to be preserved to the best of our
abilities. These stones as records tend to be more durable and lasting than
any written records which are constantly being destroyed by fires and
un-thoughtful government or persons. This subject while too complex to address here
in general will
be approached using a few problems commonly seen in old cemeteries. You will
find some practical how to advice to use in a careful and well designed
application of cemetery maintenance. However, one should be prudent in the exercise of cemetery restoration. We
want no one carelessly
exercising these methods and causing more harm than good. Lets face it. This is still
a skill that not all have the ability to perform. However, if you can
improve on the advice and methods here we would like to hear from you.
C.
Wayne Austin,
20 Jul 2011.
Revised for further explanation Jul 2015.