Gravestone Transformations

This past summer I was contacted by a man in his 80’s in Alabama who was representing family members in four different states. They had been searching for their ancestor for 30+ years and thought they finally found him here in Ohio. They asked me if I would go to the cemetery and determine if the text on the stone matched who they were looking for. The Sandstone tablet was worn and had some biological growth on it, but by using a high powered LED flashlight on a cloudy day I was able to verify the text and photograph it for the family.
With the verification completed, they wanted to place a Bronze plaque or other more robust memorial stone. We decided on a design for a Granite memorial stone with the exact text as the original and a statement that it was done by the family in 2019. We then designed a cast base that would place both the original and memorial stones on a shared foundation containing a slot for the tablet and a platform for the memorial stone. The new base has two levels so that the memorial stone sits below and forward of the original so as not to obstruct it at all. As you can see in the photo’s, the base has a good buffer space around the edge and is raised above ground level to guard against mower damage, although sadly this cemetery uses w**d killer around the stones to save money w**d eating.
The tablet was broken off and just stuck in the dirt and it was not taken up prior to the day it was set in it’s new
base, so we got a big surprise when we found more script that was hidden by the dirt. It reads: “Stop stranger stop
nor dare presume, without one silent tear, to tread the earth ware lies entomb’d, a friend the husband dear.”
Ebenezer Condit(Condict) was born in New Jersey during the Revolutionary War. He and his family moved to Ohio in 1817, 10 years before his death. Thanks to his descendants, there will be a monument to him for many years to come.

One thing that I, and I know others, hate to see is a gravestone in concrete. Unfortunately, I see a lot of it. Over the last 11 months, with 4 months off for winter, I have removed over 1 cubic yard of concrete from gravestones. That is more than 4000 pounds of concrete! The most common situation is that someone with good intentions digs a hole, pours it full of wet concrete and inserts a grave marker. They "know" that this will provide support for this gravestone for many years to come, and they may or may not be right.
Rarely does concrete come off without some damage, so a decision has to be made as to what extent you are going to go to to try to remove it. Sometimes you leave it alone and straighten the marker the best you can, sometimes you trim it down so it's less obvious, and sometimes you go all in on removing it.
Many times we benefit from the laziness of the person who placed the stone in concrete because they frequently didn't take the time to clean the stone. This is especially fortunate if it is a smooth Marble tablet, as if you know what you are doing, you can make the concrete release with almost no surface damage to the stone.
The gravestone in this before/after photo was one of these uncleaned ones. The bottom section that fits into the slot in the base was crumbling so someone many years ago poured concrete around it to support it. It looked okay just sitting there, but when I lifted the tablet, it came right out of the base along with the concrete. The concrete wasn't even adhered to the base, only the tablet. After trimming the concrete as closely as possible to the tablet, I carefully chisled the remainder off in large slabs, one from the front and one from the rear.
The crumbling bottom was trimmed off and the tablet was reset into the original base, which was raised and leveled, with proper mortar not concrete.
Concrete can be a very useful and inexpensive alternative to having a natural stone carved. However, you don't just stick a gravestone into wet concrete, you cast a new base from the concrete and mate it to the stone using soft mortar. If someone tells you otherwise, find someone else to work on your gravestone.
Thanks for reading this long post, and please share my Gravestone Transformations page and www.GravestoneTransformations.com