The Experiment Continues!

Ok. This headstone cleaning stuff is hard work for OFFs (Old, Fat, Far...). Fortunately the day and weather conspired to make the odds in our favor. Cool, light breeze, overcast (sunny would have been nicer) - not bad.

First stop was Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta and the family plot with TW's paternal Great Grandparents and Great-Great Grandparents along with a few other kin including a distant cousin who passed as an infant. The Great-Greats have full size slab markers so those are going to be a pain. The infant has a slightly ornate memorial clearly from the late Victorian era. All the others are basic granite markers.

Walter and Margaret - the Great Grands

A Great-Grand Uncle

A 1st Cousin, Twice removed. This child posed a big question in TW's family as no one knew who she was until the extended family tree was traced. 

The 2nd Great-Grands. Winzor Campr purchased the original plot in the late 1800s.

Nothing has been done to any of these markers in the past 57 years for certain, and possibly never since they were originally installed. We know the 57 year period as the last interment was in 1963, and TW's grandmother and father were responsible for the lot since then and until her father formally transferred power of attorney for it to her a few years back.

So that was everything before we did any cleaning. For these stones we opted for the "fast results" approach: Wet, apply D/2, wait a bit, scrub, rinse.

We did do some work to expose the edges of the flat stones - remove any accumulated soil and such from the stone edges.

Working on the smaller stones was relatively easy. Those big ones, though, were a PAIN in the BACK! Watching videos for D/2 you see the people using pump sprayers to  apply it. We were not so keen to buy one just for this so opted to reserve the one sprayer on hand for water application and relegate the D/2 to a hand pump spray bottle. This was great for small stones. Not so much for the large ones. Not by far. But we made it work!

I will not lie. We were stunned by the results.

Surprise! Her name is Lillian, not Jillian as recorded in Find A Grave. Yes, a correction has been submitted.

Rather a nice improvement, if I do say. As with prior cleanings, these should continue to improve with time.

From there we took a long, meandering drive making a stop to update the GPS coordinates for one of her 2nd Great Uncles in Hollywood Cemetery. Turns out that she has a 1st Cousin Thrice Removed, daughter of that 2nd Great Uncle, and her husband and child in the cemetery as well!

Hollywood has multiple sections, only some of which are Perpetual Care. The older sections, one of which is where TW's kin rest, is sadly NOT in the area under care. These uncared for areas are several acres in total. And there are some substantial hills involved - seriously, I would NOT want to have to conduct a burial in some of these sections even when they were new and pristine. The only places I have ever seen that are comparably ugly are some of the hillside graves of Mother's family in West Virginia. Oy! Mountain Goats would love the place. Tragically there are sections where headstones, monuments, walls, and such are literally falling or fallen due to erosion.

No cleaning was planned here, Just GPS updates.

But I had to take some establishing photos.

One section of Hollywood that is separated from the others by a main road. These additional shots give an idea of how abandoned the non-perpetual care areas are.

If it isn't clear in the image, the grave in the center is seriously deeply sunken - as in 2 to 3 feet deep sunken!

A child's grave with a little stone girl holding a scroll giving the child's name and dates.

The headstone in the center is TW's 2nd Great Uncle and Aunt. We did not know about their daughter and husband at the time. They would logically be marked by the fallen stone to the left. The granddaughter's small marker is barely visible to the right of the center marker, between it and the wall, right in line with the sapling.

This is what remains of the road leading to some of the old, unmaintained sections.

Careful looking will see headstones and walls atop the hill, to the right of the middle tree.

The hills are festooned with graves. Most are barely visible.

 

Would but that I had the funds to restore the cemetery. This site alone would easily need over $100,000. Probably much more.

From there we headed over to Crest Lawn Cemetery for more of her people and a difference D/2 experiment.

This time we are trying the 'long game'. No scrubbing, no rinsing. Apply and leave.

We took the time to clear away the edges and brushed off the debris. After that we applied the D/2 and left. Let's give it a few weeks then go back and see what is to be seen.

And lastly, seeing as how we were a couple of hundred yards away, we stopped at Casey's Hill Cemetery and did the same experiment - spray and walk away - for a couple of MY distant kin. I didn't grab any photos so stole these from Find A Grave.

Now to let time and the elements do their thing. 

The Experiment Begins

This is going to be interesting. TW gave me a gallon of D/2 Biological Cleaner for Valentine's Day. Yesterday we scampered out of the hutch to try it out.

First stop was Herndon Cemetery and the believed graves to two of my 5th Great-Grandparents, James and Sally (Gannaway) Malcom. I say believed because there is nothing surviving documenting where they are buried. Some of the descendants erected a monument in the 1950s a few miles away in the Green Cemetery, but frankly that location makes no sense. Somewhere I have a whole analysis based on dates, marriages, etc. that makes a damned good case that with respect to James and Sally, Green Cemetery is almost certainly a red herring. There are tales that they could be in a third cemetery. But with the Covid lockdowns I have not been able to access the old land records to evaluate that tale.

Prior researchers were firm in their conclusions that James and Sally rest under two False Tombs constructed of stacked rock in Herndon Cemetery. These are not marked. Or at least no markings are visible today. Those prior researchers all mentioned one of the tombs having an "M" etched on it. Only one of the two has any spot of sufficient size to be so carved or etched. So it is getting the D/2 Treatment. Perhaps a safe cleaning will reveal any secrets.

This image is prior to applying the D/2. Frankly the after image was not a significant improvement. Not exactly a shock for something that has been in the weather for a couple of centuries without any cleaning. Following the product instructions we left it to continue working its magic over time. 

As long as we were there, we tackled three other stones: Anna (Malcom) Herndon, her husband, Elisha Merriman Herndon, and his father, Joseph Herndon (who served in the American Revolution. Anna was the daughter of James and Sally Malcom.

Anna and Elisha's markers after initial cleaning. Believe it or not, this is a massive improvement. Obviously, though, still a long way to go.

Joseph's marker before any cleaning. Worth noting (and it is not as clear in the photos), the stone appears to have distinct sections of pink color in it. It will be interesting to see if this persists or changes over time as the D/2 continues to work its magic.

And the same marker after cleaning. Much better initial results, though as with the other cases, still a lot of room to improve. We will check back in a few weeks to see how things are progressing.

From Herndon it was over to the family cemetery in Oglethorpe County and the markers for one 3rd Great-Grandfather, one 4th Great-Grandfather, and a shared marker for two 1st Cousins 2x removed (brothers who both died in infancy). These three stones being the only real monuments in the cemetery.

James Macon Griffith's stone was only erected in the 1980s so wasn't in too much need of cleaning

James Robert and his unnamed infant brother share a marker.

I stole these photos from Find A Grave. Here is the same marker after initial D/2 application and cleaning.

I see a lot more work in my future on this one. What do you expect after 120 years of neglect?

This brought us to arguably the greatest initial success of the day. Arthur W Smith.

Some before images:

The monument stands about 5 feet tall and dates from 1892 (possibly later, but he passed early in 1892). You can see all the lichens and moss festooning the stone.

Here are some after images. Note that the stone is still wet and that is affecting the images.

There is an inscription on the last image that we could never read before. It may be visible if you save and enlarge the photo. It reads:

No pains, No grief, no

anxious fears

can reach our loved one

resting here.

We were taken a little aback at how striped the stone is. I will have to see about getting a good photo of the top of the column. It has a detail we had not noticed before (being under crud thus invisible) and that have not seen before. 

The column appears to be of the Doric Order. A classic image of a broken column symbolizing death (a life ended or broken). Nothing surprising at all. But looking at the top of the column you now can see that it is carved to look like the cross section of a tree. We never encountered the column/tree combination before. Separately, these are ubiquitous. 

As with all the other experimental stones, it remains to be seen how the cleaning progresses over time.