BROOKINGS As time relentlessly marches on, it takes its toll on cemeteries across America. For the Brookings area, add to times toll a caprice of weather such as the derecho of May 12, 2022, that can damage both the grounds and the monuments, and corrective efforts to put things back in order will be needed. Such efforts will be undertaken by Greenwood Cemetery Association from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on July 20 at a seminar at Greenwood Cemetery.
The association will be hosting a free event for the public featuring a 48-State Tour, Saving Americas Graveyards hosted by Atlas Preservation founder Jonathan Appell and coordinated here by Emerald Anderson, a funeral director at Eidsness Funeral Home in Brookings for the past eight years. In November, she also assumed the duties as sexton of Greenwood Cemetery.
We submitted an application and we were accepted, she explained. Seminars are put on all over the country. During the 2024 tour, Appell will be visiting 56 locations across the contiguous 48 states. His mission: We leave every site improved and the community equipped with the proper knowledge to continue the work.
The sexton explained that Appell is an expert in repairing these ancient, ancient stones. Hes been in business for about 25 years. He knows how to piece them back together and the best way to go about repairing them versus buying a new monument. But theres no family left for a lot of these folks. Its a nice way to keep them in peoples memories, too. They deserve to have respect.
Our hope is to re-level some monuments that have been tipped over. He will hopefully be able to repair some of the older tablet-type monuments that have been broken in half.
They also put on a cleaning seminar where were going to go and clean a lot of that mossy growth off of some of the older headstones. Each participant is encouraged to adopt a headstone and clean it.
Very, very old monuments
This is a hands-on type of seminar, Anderson noted. They will reset and re-level monuments and also talk about repairing and the participants, whoever volunteers and comes out, they can help with that process.
At the end of the day, we have arranged for some flowers to be placed on all the (headstones) that we cleaned; just because those people have likely been forgotten at this point. A lot of them are the very, very old monuments, from the very early 1900s, maybe late 1800s. and the early 2000s.
While the seminar goes from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., Anderson noted that attendees can come and go as they please. They can come and stay for whatever parts (of the seminar) theyre interested in. Morning, 9 to 10 a.m.: introductions, walk-and-talk tour; 10 a.m. to 12 p.m., gravestone cleaning; noon, lunch break; and 12 to 3 p.m., monument repair work.
Were hoping that people will be interested in this and that theyll participate with us, Anderson added. Its really something different for our community, something that they can participate in thats kind of out of the norm.
I know that there is a lot of interest in the gravestone cleaning; so this would be a way to learn how to do that safely, without damaging the stone.
And really were just trying to bring attention to the cemetery again. We had so much damage through that derecho. (Cleaning up) is still kind of a process. A lot of it is obviously cleaned up: the trees that came down are all gone. There are still trees that are up that are damaged. There are stones that are damaged from the trees falling. Its an ongoing project.
For for additional information, contact Anderson at 605-690-0372 or log on to www.48statetour.com and check out the fifth annual 2024 48-State Tour.
Contact John Kubal at [email protected].
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