Greensburg Daily News, Greensburg, IN

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December 1, 2005

Uncovering the stories of the past

Restoration professionals are washing away centuries of wear on Ashbury Cemetery headstones

Paul Glasser

Restoration professionals are washing away the centuries of moss and dirt to uncover the stories of the people buried in Asbury Cemetery.

“We’re putting the pieces of the puzzle together,” said Helen Wildermuth, owner of Inianapolis-based Stonehugger Cemetery Restoration. “Some pieces are still buried.”

Wildermuth and her partner Mark Davis, from Stone Saver Cemetery Restoration, are working to restore the 90 headstones found in Asbury Cemetery. The small plot of land is located in Jackson Township, south of Waynesburg on County Road 1000 West.

Township trustee Robert Clark is charged with maintaining the cemetery and asked Wildermuth and Davis to help repair and restore the gravestones. Many of the monuments had been knocked over or damaged.

“How would you feel if your relatives were buried here,” Clark asked. “It makes you feel good to see it restored.”

Clark requested extra money from the state to fund the restoration project and hopes to restore the three other cemeteries in Jackson Township.

Wildermuth has been in the business for five years and decided to pursue this career after she participated in a gravestone restoration workshop.

“I’ve always been interested in history and genealogy, so this was just a natural progression,” she said.

Inscriptions indicate the cemetery was used between 1830 and 1920 so, for almost two hundred years - dirt, dust, moss and leaves have covered the inscriptions. The restoration workers use brushes to apply the ammonia cleaning solution and repair any damaged headstones. More than half of the 90 tablets had fallen to the ground and many of them suffered extensive damage. The professionals used stone epoxy to repair headstones and mortar to reset tablets. But, overall, the cemetery was still in good condition.

“It takes a lot of muscle, heart, masonry, carpentry and detective work,” Wildermuth said. “To do the job right, you have to be thorough.”

In addition to the restoration work, Wildermuth and Davis document everything they find by photographing each monument before and after it is restored. Small, local cemeteries like Asbury are virtual treasure troves of information.

“These are the computer hard-drives of the 19th century,” Davis said.

So far, the two partners have discovered two Civil War veterans in Asbury and a man who was buried next to his third, fourth and fifth wives. Another local couple were buried with their seven children side by side. Infant mortality was a common concern before the era of modern medicine and children account for more than 30 percent of the plots in most older cemeteries.

“It’s very heartbreaking sometimes,” Wildermuth said.

Together with Davis, Wildermuth has restored more than 5,000 headstones across Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky. This year alone, they worked on 2,000 monuments and have used the Greensburg Public Library to verify information. Sometimes records are lost and inscriptions are worn away, so many puzzles will never be solved.

“We always wonder who we missed, because the clues are buried just beneath the surface,” Wildermuth said.

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