Cemetery Preservation

While traveling to other cities or even driving in your home town you may have glanced over at a cemetery and noticed how crooked and dark a number of the grave stones appear. When we went and visited one of our family cemeteries we noticed the same thing. Many of the old grave stones had sunk into the ground or were on the verge of toppling over. All of them were covered with a black or brown coating making them unreadable. We felt that to allow this type of deterioration to continue was disrespectful to our past loved ones. We took it upon ourselves to find the best method of cleaning the stones with out harming the delicate surface. We also lifted many of the stones out of the ground and securely reset them. This is one of the stones we lifted from the ground and cleaned. The cleaning involves no harsh chemicals that will eat away at the stone.

Correcting Issues With A Headstone.

Headstones, just because of their weight will eventually start to sink into the ground. This is especially true of older stones where a proper foundation was not laid before the stone was placed. These stones start to sink into the ground or lean in one direction. Many eventually crack in two because they are leaning so far over. Many if these issues can be easily corrected by just lifting and resetting the stone. Stones that are cracked or broken will require professional care.

Older headstones that are made of marble and other porous stones often become covered with a dark mold or fungus. This mold/fungus if left untreated will eat away at the stone and make the inscriptions virtually impossible to read. Many people in the past have resorted to taking metal brushes to scrape the mold/fungus off. Or they use harsh chemicals like bleach. Neither of these methods are long lasting and they actually harm the stone.

In our family cemetery we have started to correct a number of the issues we found. We have discussed what we have accomplished with the church and now they want to undertake some more restoration programs. We will be posting information in the future to show the steps involved in cleaning and restoring the headstones.

Resetting a Headstone

Many times the stone base has sunk into the ground, like the headstone for "Little Worth" above. To correct this situation we gently cut the grass around the stone and lifted the grass away. We then carefully dug down around the base of the stone and lifted the base and headstone out of the ground. We then put in fill and leveled it off and replaced the base back into the hole. we then put the dirt back into the hole and gently placed the grass back into position. In the example below, this stone did not have a base remaining. There was enough blank stone on the bottom to bring the stone out of the ground to reveal all of the data but provide enough support to raise it further up into the air. A more permanent solution would be to create a stone base and place the stone into a cut slot.

Headstone Cleaning

Below are two examples of head stones that we cleaned with a special treatment that eats away at the mold but does not harm the stone. The treatment that we applied is the same one that is used in several of the national cemeteries including Arlington National Cemetery. The process is very simple. We first completely wet the stone with water and then sprayed the D2 compound onto the stone. We then took a soft bristle brush and scrubbed the stone. Next we rinsed the stone and again sprayed the D2 compound onto the stone. Instead of rinsing the stone again we left the D2 compound on to soak into the stone. The compound over times kills the mold/fungus leaving the white surface of the stone.