WILTON – More than three dozen volunteers attended a graveyard preservation project over the weekend, hosted in conjunction with the Maine Old Cemetery Association and the town of Wilton. The project brought interested people from as far away as Vermont to attend the four-day event beginning with a workshop on Friday morning.
Joe Ferrannini, a cemetery preservationist and monument conservationist of Grave Stone Matters based in Hoosick Falls, N.Y., led the workshop.
“I call it conserving or preserving, not restoring; if you are trying to make a cemetery look new than you are probably doing harm. They are meant to look old,” Ferrannini explained at the workshop. “If you try to make it look like a golf course cemetery you end up losing the evidence of the graves.”
The workshop educated participants on how to properly clean grave stones, as well as how to straighten leaning stones or piece together broken monuments in the least intrusive ways. A similar workshop was held at the West Mills Cemetery in Industry Aug. 12-15.
“We are definitely not going to be the last ones to work on these stones so why make it harder for the next person,” Ferrannini said to those attending the Wilton session.
Following the workshop, the group moved to the Wilton Old Town Cemetery on Weld Road where the attendees spent the next three days getting their hands dirty. Some of the workshop participants were looking to find out more about family history, others for job-related reasons, but most were simply interested in the project and wanting to give back to the community.
“MOCA is such a great organization,” Joy Harvey said. A resident of South Portland, Harvey attended the workshop with her husband who is a trustee on the board of a cemetery in their own town. “It’s such forgotten work. People don’t take care of cemeteries anymore,” Harvey said.
Other participants shared sentiments with Harvey, commenting on the importance of caring for such an integral piece of a town’s history. “Deb Probert does an amazing job connecting the community with local cemeteries,” Pam Simmons commented. “She does things like bringing Cub Scouts in to work on cleaning stones. It not only connects young kids with their genealogy but also instills some sense of responsibility in them, with the hopes of reducing vandalism.”
Probert of Farmington, a retired Jay school teacher, was the spearhead behind the entire project- stemming from an interest in mapping her own family history. “It was all Deb’s idea,” Rhonda Irish, Wilton town manager, said. “Without her none of this would have happened. I’m amazed at the amount of energy people have here.”
Irish pitched in with the efforts to preserve Wilton’s history, commenting on how thankful she was to host such an event and be involved with it all. “It’s hard work. Then, of course, there is all of the family history, which is really difficult not to get distracted by.”
Thanks to the Daily Bulldog for covering our MOCA workshop! I’m dismayed @ the number of area ancient cemeteries from Jay to Rangely whose historic headstones been bleached (:-( or powerwashed (;-(, destroying marbles’ natural surface & aging family memorial inscriptions by decades. Please protect our cemeteries historic headstone & inscriptions; don’t hasten their deterioration! See moca-me.org “preserving” for proper care :)
Deb is amazing. Does not surprise me what she accomplishes. So proud of her.
To me, this is much needed work. Many cemeteries in Maine need this care. Information is lost if no one takes care of them. Often, it seems, there is no one left to take care of these old graves. I never knew how complicated it is to clean them and fix them to stand up-right. Thanks for info.