A local historical society asked for help restoring a tiny, abandoned family burial plot from the late 1800s that was completely swallowed up by the woods behind a municipal park. The fence was totally knocked down and you couldn’t even see the markers through the thick briars. I figured it would be a simple Saturday project of just running a weed whacker, clearing some brush, and uprighting a couple of small stones. It turned into a massive wrestling match against stubborn roots and heavy granite.
The biggest issue right away was how aggressive the vegetation had gotten over the last fifty years. These massive wild ivy vines had literally wrapped themselves entirely around the old limestone headstones, cementing them into the ground and cracking the bases. If you just yank the vines by hand, the soft, weathered stone will literally crumble into powder. I had to spend three hours hunched over in the dirt with a pair of hand pruners, slowly snipping away the thick roots millimeter by millimeter just to expose the inscriptions without destroying the faces.
Then came the real backbreaker of resetting a massive granite obelisk marker that had tilted completely sideways into a sinkhole. Natural soil erosion had washed away the entire gravel footing underneath the base block. You can’t just shove a piece of stone back into place when it weighs four hundred pounds. We had to use heavy-duty nylon tow straps hooked up to a truck winch, slowly hoist the stone upright in the mud, and manually shovel layers of crushed limestone base rock directly under the wet footing to stabilize the weight.
The main center markers are finally sitting upright and level now, and the heavy perimeter brush is cleared back to the tree line. The old limestone has a weird green stain on it from decades of moss growth that makes the faded dates almost impossible to read unless the sun hits the carvings at a perfect angle in the late afternoon.