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Cemetery Restoration
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The ravages of time take a toll on tombstones. But in a small Pennsylvania town, one man has made it his life’s work to restore the grave markers in his church cemetery. As Jim Melchiorre (PRONOUNCED MEL-KEE-OR-EE) reports, he is reopening chapters of history etched in each stone. |
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SCRIPT:
(Locator: New Bloomfield, PA)
A battery-powered sander, wire brush and old-fashioned elbow grease open windows to the past.
Miles Beaston/Tombstone Restorer: “I would say 75 percent of these old stones you can’t read.”
It’s better now, at the two-and-a-half century old Snyder United Methodist Church Cemetery, since soft-spoken Miles Beaston made restoration of these tombstones his life’s work.
Miles Beaston/Tombstone Restorer: “By doing that, at least we can show our children that we have an obligation to honor people.”
Cemetery Visitors: “That’s a memorial stone for Isaiah Owens…”
In this rural community, folks find their own family names all over the cemetery.
Bob Rathfon/Cemetery Visitor: “I’ve always been an avid lover of genealogy and family history and such. We could never re-pay him for what he’s doing here.”
Miles Beaston/Tombstone Restorer: “Now we've got the writing over here, we’ll see who this is...”
It’s the tombstone of sisters Edith and Mable Soule (soo lay), babies who died before their first birthdays. At age 76, Miles admits to a personal interest in Snyder Cemetery: someday it will be his resting place.
Miles Beaston/Tombstone Restorer: “I want to be remembered as that I made a difference. And the biggest difference it can make is if someone else can follow after, and hopefully some will.”
TAG:
Miles Beaston has toured many of the historic church cemeteries in his home state of Pennsylvania and finds that many face the same challenge as his own congregation - finding the money, but especially the people, to provide better care.
For more information, contact Snyder United
Methodist Church at
http://www.gbgm-umc.org/snyders/.