Experts teach preservation of historic cemeteries, headstones
PERRYSVILLE — The CRF (Cleo Redd Fisher) Museum in Loudonville held a cemetery preservation workshop last week at the Union Cemetery in Perrysville. Guests who attended got the opportunity to participate in gravestone cleaning and learn the most safe and effective repair techniques.
The CRF Museum partnered with Atlas Preservation in Connecticut, one of the nation's top cemetery experts. Atlas is conducting a 48-state tour where the experts drive around the country and hold workshops in different states.
"The main goal of it was to teach people how to properly clean and repair headstones, and just general care of historical cemeteries," said Kenny Libben, curator at the CRF Museum. "They chose us as a state host and the reason we wanted to do it, especially in Perrysville, is because it's one of the more historical ones in the area but it's also in really bad shape.
No longer an active cemetery
"It's no longer an active cemetery. As they have deteriorated, it's just not maintained properly. The people who clean the cemeteries just don't have the resources and training to properly do it."
Jonathan Appell, of Atlas Preservation, and Alicia Williams, a cemetery preservation star on social media, demonstrated the safe and proper way to clean historic monuments, primarily using a special biological solution known as D/2, which not only cleans but also inhibits the growth of biological material such as lichens for up to a year after application.
Later in the afternoon, Appell and Williams demonstrated how to properly level, reset, and repair leaning headstones including the disassembly of one using a hoist. After the workshop, Libben encouraged attendees to come back in a few months to see the progress of the work.
Cleaning without damaging the engraving
"There was a lot of discussion on how to properly clean the headstone without damaging the engraving by using the right material to handle them," said Libben, who provided cleaning supplies for attendees.
"In the afternoon, it was focused on how to repair them, especially those that are sunken into the ground and leaning, or if it's a multi-piece stone where the top pieces have moved and fallen, then how to reset them."
Now the CRF Museum is recruiting volunteers to form a group to help clean and repair historic cemeteries in the Mohican area, in addition to hosting more workshops in the future.
"People seemed to enjoy it," said Libben. "We had people all over the state. A lot of the interest was learning how to properly clean them because people want to go back to their hometown and clean up those cemeteries and the headstones of their ancestors."
jsimpson@gannett.com
Twitter: @JamesSimpsonII
This article originally appeared on Mansfield News Journal: Citizens of Loudonville learn to properly clean cemeteries at preservation workshop
