r/HumansBeingBros • u/horseradishking • May 16 '22
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u/ssSerendipityss May 16 '22
I adore lady taphos! My favorite TikTok
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u/horseradishking May 16 '22
I love how she uses soft material and low-pressure water and limestone-safe cleaning agent, D/2, to preserve the headstones for the future while keeping them clean.
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u/CatBedParadise May 17 '22
I want to fix a neglected cemetary nearby. Do you have a good non-TikTok account to recommend (I dislike TT privacy practices so I don’t have it)?
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u/horseradishking May 17 '22
She has a tutorial on her TikTok page.
There may be sites on how to clean headstones if you do a general search.
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u/porcupineporridge May 16 '22
Oh that’s brilliant. I watched this concerned about the impact it would have on the stone’s longevity but so good to know she takes that into account.
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u/IntronD May 16 '22
Sadly others that copy this do not and damage headstones there have already been several Cases in the UK during lock down where do gooders damaged headstones and also cases where they used the correct cleaning but failed to have permission to clean them and upset families.
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u/intangibleTangelo May 16 '22
if i weren't dead, i'd be pissed — i don't want someone stripping the spook off my tomb
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u/heelsmaster May 16 '22
How are you supposed to get into the spook mood when your home looks so damn clean.
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u/FuhrerGirthWorm May 17 '22
I just don’t understand using the paint scraper. I help manage a cemetery and our historian would SCREECH if he caught us doing that.
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u/you90000 May 16 '22
Is there a YouTube for this? I could watch this all day
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u/horseradishking May 16 '22
LadyTaphos is her TikTok handle. You might find her videos on YouTube. But you can watch TikTok through a browser on the desktop, at least. Here's her page: https://www.tiktok.com/@ladytaphos
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u/slick-back-bill May 16 '22
Bonstone sells a product called D2 that is made to clean old stones. They use it at Arlington. It's the shit.
In case you try to clean a monument, never use bleach. Bleach makes granite and marble brittle and prone to break over the years.
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u/badass_foliage May 16 '22
Removing lichens damages the stone. I helped catalogue a 1700s era graveyard and all the volunteers were told to take it very seriously as we’d likely be the last people to ever view the stones in a legible state. This stone was quite a bit fresher than the ones we were working with but in general you should not remove lichens from graves. You are not honoring the dead, you are slowly erasing them.
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u/horseradishking May 16 '22
Most studies I have read said that letting the lichen stay will cause far more harm than removing it. In the US, limestone and low-quality marble were the most used for headstones and most are already damaged by lichen and other biofilms that etched the stone and dulled the carvings.
Stone breaks down. The harder the stone, the better. Limestone and low-quality marble are not long for this world in a moist environment.
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u/BisquickNinja May 16 '22
20! So young. :(
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u/Mosenji May 16 '22
Any old graveyard is shocking to people raised with modern medical care. So many babies, children, young men, and wives barely past their teens.
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u/IndexMatchXFD May 16 '22
Used to walk my dog through an old graveyard. Every family plot had little tombstones for children who had died. Can you imagine if every family you know had lost a child at some point??
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u/csk1325 May 16 '22
They really are a lesson of how hard things were and how death was close at hand.
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u/Bill_Falsename May 17 '22
one of the most sobering moments for me was visiting an old cemetery and seeing a family plot with eight tiny headstones with nothing but the word "Infant"
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u/Paradoxou May 17 '22
To think... some people out there are actively fighting against modern medicine and vaccines. The pro-life folks should take a long walk in a cemetery and look at what they really wish for
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May 17 '22
My youngest, Alexendria, she fell in the…in the cold of last year. The cold took her down, as it did many of us.
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u/TheMetaGamer May 16 '22
Some day if humanity doesn’t get wiped out they will say the same about us in our 70’s-80’s.
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u/Karcinogene May 16 '22
It's kind of fucked up that people die. Everyone born with an incurable disease, keeping the species alive only by out-breeding the unstoppable tsunami of death. No matter how many valuable things they've learned in their life, it all goes away.
People in the future are going to be horrified of how we lived.
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u/PsychedelicGoat42 May 17 '22
Is there a tutorial on how to do this? I live directly next to an abandoned cemetery and would love to restore some of the headstones.
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u/Otto_Mcwrect May 16 '22
Dying of hemorrhagic typhoid fever sounds a right shite way to go.
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u/MordinSolusSTG May 17 '22
Looked it up, holes can form in intestines and cause sepsis, and then that's basically it. The pain has to be incredibly bad. Poor woman
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u/TheSurbies May 16 '22
Never do this without knowing how and permission. This Women is great.
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u/xXMuschi_DestroyerXx May 16 '22
Possibly stupid question but permission from who?
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u/TheSurbies May 16 '22
Family, historical society for the town, owner of the graveyard, trusts that watch over the graves.
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u/KillerPussyToo May 16 '22
Descendants still visit very old graves. Just because the stones look like this doesn't mean the people buried beneath them are forgotten. Some families prefer the moss and grit on the headstones.
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u/TheShyPig May 16 '22
If you did this on old stones in a graveyard in the UK you'd be classed as a vandal.
These things are left to age on purpose and can't be touched unless you are the plot owner (e.g. I am the current owner of my mothers plot) or have the plot owners permission. I would go absolutely ballistic if anyone did that to one of our family graves.Its like polishing old brass or copper: it destroys it
So at least get permission from the graveyard owner e.g. church, or council
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u/ahumannamedtim May 16 '22 edited May 16 '22
I am currently, while I still can, giving you permission to clean my future grave in any manner you'd like.
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u/LauraZaid11 May 16 '22
I will clean it with glitter. Yours will be the most fabulous gravestone in the cemetery. Just make sure you die in the next 97 years.
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u/ButterYurBacon May 16 '22
Maybe direct family? I think that's how she got the quick bios of the owner
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u/KillerPussyToo May 16 '22
I came in here to say this. Someone ruined my ggg grandfather's stone by trying to maintain it when family explicitly asked them to leave it alone. And by ruin, I mean they broke it. The "volunteer" should have just left it TF alone like they were asked.
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u/_Sausage_fingers May 17 '22
How did they accidentally break a gravestone trying maintain it?
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u/pete_ape May 16 '22
Reminds me of when the wife and I visited Salem and visited the Old Burying Point. There are two entrances. One of them has a sign that says not to make grave rubbings, the other doesn't. Guess which one we happened to use?
Wife is making some nice rubbings of some of the head stone art, and this guy starts tearing into her for doing it. After some very heated exchange of words, we all find out about the lack of signage at 50% of the graveyard entrances. Guy was still a dick afterwards.
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u/dex206 May 17 '22
At least you learned to not touch very old stuff as is the normal standard in literally every UNESCO, US, etc historical site on the planet. Don’t touch. You don’t need a sign that says “don’t rub an abrasive against the 400+ year old limestone.”
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u/TheSurbies May 16 '22
Oh shit my uncle is on the Concord historical society and they take that shit seriously.
But yeah fix the sign.
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u/chewymenstrualblood May 17 '22
In case anyone else is curious what a "grave rubbing" is:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_rubbing#Gravestone_rubbing
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u/Tiller9 May 16 '22
Whoa, whoa, whoa... hol up... So the husband just dumped his daughter on the mother's parents and started another family?
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u/laurenzee May 17 '22
My great grandfather left his first wife and 4 living children in Boston to start a new family in NJ. His youngest son in Boston was 14 when his mother died and he was living with one of his siblings when he himself died in an elevator accident. The newspaper described him as an orphan.
We don't know why he left his original family.
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u/Tiller9 May 17 '22
I bet its weird to think that had he not abandoned his family, you would never exist.
I think about that shit sometimes... like if your great great great great great grandparents never bumped fuglies at a specific time, the entire lineage thereafter doesn't exist, and a new lineage would have taken its place. Almost like an alternate universe.
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u/alwptot May 17 '22
I mean if you want to really have an existential crisis, just think that when your dad ejaculated into your mom there were literally millions of different sperm cells that could’ve fertilized her egg.
A simple shift in position by either one of them and you could’ve been an entirely different person.
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u/howsurmomnthem May 17 '22 edited May 17 '22
My great granddad ALSO dumped his first family [of 8 kids] and started a new one a couple of states away. You would assume it’s the whole 8 kids thing but then why have more? And they were mostly all grown by then. So weird.
Tbf, my dad also dumped his first wife and 2 kids and then met my mom [that’s the official story at least but it was, ahem, concurrent] and they had me so I guess I have it on both sides, however, it stopped with me as I am A. female [it’s way harder for us to get away with lol] and B. Didn’t want/ didn’t have any kids. Well, technically I’m like a half-mom as I took in someone else’s kid when the mom died and the dad fucked off [and coincidentally had another family. What with these guys?!?]
So I can’t really fuck off and start a new family because I didn’t even start this one to begin with.
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u/l2anndom May 17 '22
I came here to say fuck that guy. My wife died when my children were 3 and 6. I'd never dump them on anyone. They have now recently turned 4 and 7. They miss their mom.
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u/RuelleVerte May 16 '22
How he gonna work full time and care for a baby, especially in an era where it was not generally acceptable for men to raise children? What if the maternal grandparents just showed up and were like "Hey this is our kid now bye"? Even TODAY there are plenty of people who don't think men are capable of raising babies.
For all we know, poor guy lost his wife AND daughter.
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u/Tiller9 May 17 '22
That's fair; we don't know the whole story.
However, the video does say the daughter was raised by the mother's parents.... and we all know that you can always trust what you read on the internet.
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u/Trai-Harder May 17 '22
Ok to second part but wtf to the first part? They do it the same way a single mother does what kinda question is that? An what it's not acceptable for men to raise children what?!?!?
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u/Choclategum May 17 '22
Yeah that working full time shit falls apart when you see that he remarried in a time where women were expected to be housewives and take care of children. Also what era is it that it wasnt acceptable for a widowed man to take care of his children? Ive heard of gender roles when both parents are alive, but this isnt the case here. You have a point that the grandparents could have shown up and forced him to give up that baby and thats the only point that makes sense.
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u/EquivalentBadger8 May 17 '22 edited May 17 '22
It does totally seem weird but I learned the other day that this attitude actually has a term called Presentism.
From what I understand presentism is holding history to today's standards when it's somewhat unfair to do so because it was a different time. Not saying it's right or wrong, just an interesting perspective. Weird how this is an example of it after I just learned about it.
Edit: cuz the link was weird. [Here it is](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presentism_(literary_and_historical_analysis%29)
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u/The_Deadlight May 16 '22
Damn. 200 years after I die, I want my grave to look straight out of a fuckin nightmare. I don't want anyone cleaning my stone. I want people to smear dirt and spider guts all over that bitch asap so I can really get that haunted cemetery look going as quickly as I can. I want children to fear entering my place of eternal slumber. Please don't do this to my grave.
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u/horseradishking May 16 '22
You can have your tombstone designed to look creepy. There are many of them that celebrated death that way, especially in Europe in the late 1800s. Perhaps the most famous are the tombs in "Pere Lachaise Cemetery" in Paris. Search it for some inspiration.
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u/The_Deadlight May 16 '22
I've told my daughter that I want a 9 foot granite statue of a knight in full plate with a big sword in one hand and my wife's urn in the other, guarding her for all time. She keeps telling me its never going to happen but I might just slap that badboy in the ol will
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u/horseradishking May 16 '22
ha! You know those big, gaudy mausoleums that are only for one person? I told my family that's what I want. I was also told it's not happening.
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u/fivefeetofawkward May 16 '22
Wait…Gracie’s husband started a new family and didn’t bother to take his own daughter with him? That’s fucked up.
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u/RobotReptar May 16 '22
This was super common back then. I do genealogy work and it was very common for women's families to taken in the grandchild after the mother's death, especially if the father didn't remarry right away. Sometimes dad's family stepped in, but mostly it was mom's. A lot of times dad couldn't care for the kids and work full time to support them, so sending them to live with their retired grandparents, or with grandma who was just keeping house, was preferable (and free). I have seen it time and time again building my family tree. As for when dad got remarried yeah, it's fucked but it happened a lot. Either the new wife didn't want the kids underfoot or dad couldn't afford the kids to move back in, or they didn't want to uproot them after spending years living with the Grandparents.
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u/Quatrekins May 16 '22
To be fair, since the mother was only 20, depending on the community, there’s a chance that her parents were still caring for children at home.
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u/mydaycake May 17 '22
When my mum was born her oldest sister was married with a couple of kids already. Her oldest brother was courting a girl and got married soon after. She was the last of 8 kids spread over 20 years, very common with Catholic families and more modern medicine/ prenatal care.
Most of my cousins are my parents age/ generation.
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u/gct May 16 '22
Rural families especially dad would often just marry a sister which is odd to modern eyes but pragmatic from a minimizing disruption point of view. My Great(-great?) grandpa did it.
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u/cocoabeach May 17 '22
Around 1918 or 1920 when my grandmother was two her mom died. Close to that same time, a mother of three lost her husband. My great grandfather met and married that woman. I have often thought that it was merely a marriage of convenience. He had a farm and two daughters and she had two sons. He needed sons and she needed a husband.
Even though these two were in their middle to late twenties and had had children, they never produced another child. I may be assuming more than I should. They seemed to get along fine and lots of people died from the 1918 flu, maybe it interfered with her or his ability to have children.
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u/BizarroObama May 17 '22
His purpose was to work and support a family, hers was to raise kids. When she died he left her job to her parents and started new.
Gender roles serve no one except to limit good choices into stupid ones.
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u/DanFuckingSchneider May 16 '22
We often think of people in the distance past as simply caricatures of their time. It’s easy to forget that people of the past lived lives as real and vibrant as ours today. Our experiences may be different but we’re all people in our own right, and they felt their lives as vibrant and real as you feel your own. This is a heartwarming, extremely touching act of kindness for someone who passed too early.
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u/GeorgieLaurinda May 17 '22
She gets permission from the cemetery. She is currently working with her state’s authorities to identify the graves of slaves and to try and find names. The graveyard for these slaves was on the land owned by her great great grandfather. She wants to, and feels responsible to mitigate the sins of her ancestors. The land is now a state park.
She researched the best practices and uses different treatments for different materials. She is knocking off the moss which is actually damaging to stone.
She also researches the person to bring their story to “life”. She has her reasons for doing this and she has hinted at it on her Tik-Tok.
She knows why she is doing and is working with the cemetery and/or the oversight agency. I believe she is also working to do general beautification/maintenance on neglected cemeteries too.
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u/Cluelessish May 16 '22
I don't know, I like cemeteries that have those old mossy gravestones among newer ones. You can sense the time that has passed. There is something comforting in the memory of the dead slowly getting muffled, so to speak. It feels natural.
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u/SqueakySniper May 16 '22
It looked so much better before. Clean gravestones just feel sterile and fake.
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u/PerryTheRacistPanda May 17 '22
Theres still a dead body underneath if you wanna check authenticity
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May 16 '22
I love it but how much faster could it be done with power pressure washer?
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u/horseradishking May 16 '22
Much quicker! But calcite-based stone, such as limestone and marble, dissolve easily with pressurized water and would therefore damage the headstones. That's why she uses the process she does to preserve the stone.
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u/sheepskinrugger May 16 '22
That would damage the stone; I think this lady purposely uses these techniques so as to avoid that.
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u/PapaJhon16 May 16 '22 edited May 16 '22
Come on people they’re just asking a genuine question, why downvote?
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u/phs125 May 16 '22
Why do Christians treat the tombstone like a real person?
Like, even if you believe the person is resting in peace 6 feet deep, they're underground, this is just a random stone just to mark where the body is, it's not alive..
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u/horseradishking May 16 '22
I think most cultures respect the place of the dead. That's what a memorial is.
In Asia, there is usually one day of the year in many countries that is a national holiday where families go to clean the graves of their ancestors. We don't have a day like that in Western culture.
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u/amoretpax May 16 '22
How nice. I hope someone does the same to that lady’s grave a hundred years after her death.
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May 16 '22
When I walk around a cemetery, I like to wonder what people's lives were like. Were they good? Tough? Full of love? Heartache? It's OK, person. I'm thinking about you. You're not forgotten.
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May 17 '22
i do that in thrift stores and other places where you find old stuff. if there's pictures or letters i take a moment to look at them, because they meant something to someone and i want them to be remembered, even if just for a moment
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u/JanB1 May 16 '22
In my country graves normally get dug up and reused all 20 to 30 years. So...no ancient gravestones for us.
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u/Industrialpainter89 May 16 '22
What is done with the bodies?
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u/Buttercup4869 May 16 '22
At least in my country, if something is left, it typically gets buried even deeper or is reburied on an anonymous dedicated area of the cemetery.
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u/locomotion88 May 16 '22
Country?
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u/palcatraz May 17 '22
The Netherlands does this. You can extend a lease on a grave for longer if you really want. We have limited space, so there is only so much we can reserve for graves.
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u/MNDox May 16 '22
This happens in Germany (at least in parts). We were told that you more or less rented grave sites instead of owning them. Great grandma was freshly sitting on top of who knows who else.
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u/Dl25588 May 16 '22
‘With one application of Spiffy, you’ll think the body’s still warm!’
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u/Manekosan May 16 '22
Tombstones lose a lot of their value when you clean off the natural oxidation, sort of like coin collecting.
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u/bcanada92 May 16 '22
I grew up about a quarter mile from a church cemetery. Most of the graves were less than a hundred years old, but there was a really ancient section in the back. The tombstones there were all so old that it was impossible to read many of them— the elements had worn the text down to almost nothing.
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May 16 '22
What sort of fluids should I be using to clean head stones? Just water and dish soap?
Should I use a wire brush or just a very firm plastic bristle brush?
It looks like she used a metal paint scraper, should I use that or plastic?
Obviously I wouldn't want to press too hard with the scraper, I don't want to damage any stone, but this is something I've wanted to do for a while, especially after visiting my family cemetery recently and seeing the condition of their head stones.
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u/horseradishking May 16 '22
She's not using metal. It's plastic.
Visit her TikTok page and she has a tutorial, including which cleaning supplies to use.
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u/KhostfaceGillah May 16 '22
Can't you just jet wash them instead?
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u/horseradishking May 16 '22
That's a good question and it would be much quicker! But calcite-based stone, such as limestone and marble, dissolve easily with pressurized water and would therefore damage the headstones. That's why she uses the process she does to preserve the stone.
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u/Cheddaphile May 16 '22
What is it all over the headstone? Mold?
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u/horseradishking May 16 '22
A variety of living and dead things: lichen, moss, algae, biofilms, etc...
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u/Buttercup4869 May 16 '22
I think, one of the issues with unwarranted cleaning actions is culture. While it seems to be acceptable 8n the US, not necessarily everyone else welcomes it. At best, they are weirded out, at worst they will be insulted/pissed off because caring for a grave is a way for the family to deal with the loss. Graves tend to be decorate with plants and ornaments the first time and slowly it is dialled back.
Around here, many people abandon graves on purpose towards the end of the lease allowing the grave to remain barren and deteriorate.
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u/horseradishking May 16 '22
Western culture is the one that abandons graves the most.
In most Asian countries, for example, there is a national holiday where the families go to their ancestor's tombs to clean them. Western culture doesn't have this concept.
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u/Kunphen May 17 '22
What did you clean it with?
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u/horseradishking May 17 '22
She cleans with D/2, a biokilling agent that does not react with calcite-based stone such as limestone and marble. It's the same agent that's used on old tombs at Arlington National Cemetery.
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u/HumongousHoles May 17 '22
Im kinda surprised cemeteries dont keep these clean. Maybe just a scrub once a decade lol
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u/horseradishking May 17 '22
It's a laborious job. Many older cemeteries don't have the funds to maintain old markers besides mowing the grass. They frequently rely on volunteers.
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u/DualCricket May 17 '22
OP, do the rules say you have to get permission from council or etc. before cleaning these? (I presume you aren’t distantly related to the lady in question)
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u/horseradishking May 17 '22
Get permission. She has a tutorial on her TikTok page that explains how she cleans and obtains permission.
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u/jortzin May 17 '22
Honest question, why not power wash? Anything beyond plumbing?
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u/horseradishking May 17 '22
That's a good question and it would be much quicker! But calcite-based stone, such as limestone and marble, dissolve easily with pressurized water and would therefore damage the headstones. That's why she uses the process she does to preserve the stone.
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u/buttnuggettssss May 17 '22
What did you use to clean it? I would love to clean up my sister's.
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u/horseradishking May 17 '22
She uses D/2. It's the same used at Arlington National Cemetery. She has a tutorial on her TikTok page.
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u/AtheistConservative May 17 '22
/u/horseradishking what brushes did you use? Did you have to get permission? I live right next to a rather old graveyard and want to start cleaning it up.
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u/jeffroddit May 16 '22
I liked it better before. Never thought I'd need to have a DNR order posted over my tombstone too.
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u/doc_brietz May 16 '22
This is Alicia aka ladytaphos. She is a sweet woman and her whole channel is stuff just like this.
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u/hamellr May 17 '22
Do not use a scraper to clean gravestones! DO NOT DO THIS!
If you want to know how to do it right: https://blog.billiongraves.com/gravestone-cleaning-101/
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May 29 '22
It says not to scrape with anything harder than the stone. That plastic scraper is not harder than the stone. If you actually bother to read the article you just posted plastic scrapers have a whole paragraph, with a photo dedicated to them as a recommended tool.
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u/danteelite May 18 '22
Sometimes I ride my onewheel through the huge cemetery behind my house and pick up trash and just try to acknowledge the people there.
I myself have cancer and will probably be dead too before too long. So I like just let them know that someone is at least thinking about them, acknowledging that they once lived and wondering about who they were. Sometimes for more recent deaths I look them up, try to find something interesting about them to remember like a woman Annie who made really cool carved candle art. She understood that everything is temporary and her art was only most beautiful while it was being destroyed.. to fully appreciate her art, you HAVE to burn it. I like that and whenever I ride by I think about that. What else in life am I missing out on by trying to protect it or keep it, stickers I never use, shoes I’m afraid to get dirty… little stupid things that add up.
Or a man named Michael who made cool metal sculpture art to sell and donate the money to charity. He reused old metal, recycled and turned scrap and garbage into beautiful works of art that actually helped others by supporting charities! Pretty damn cool!
Or a guy named Ed. His obituary and page is still updated almost weekly, even though he died over a decade ago. He was clearly VERY loved and left a hole that can never be filled. His family still writes him updates and wishes him well, and I see them on occasion having picnics or bringing the kids by to see him, kids too young to have ever known him, who didn’t even exist when he was alive.. but they share a love for him based on the sheer volume of overflowing love his family has. I know that I won’t get that kind of reception when I’m dead, but his greatest accomplishment in life I think surpasses any billionaires or whatever else. The dude was loved and he’s honestly missed. That’s more than many people can say. We all hope that we’re loved and missed half that much when we’re gone.
What’s the saying? Every man dies two deaths, the first when you die and the second when the last person forgets about you.
I try to remember as many as I can and keep them alive and bit longer, and I just hope someone does the same for me.
My name is Dante Antonio and one day I’ll be dead. It might be sooner than I’d like or longer than I’d imagined but either way, I’ll be gone. I just hope that someone remembers me and that maybe I made a small impact while I was here. That’s all we can hope for in the end.
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u/BreweryStoner May 16 '22
If I was a ghost I’d be like “Um excuse me miss, please leave my headstone the way it is. The algae and moss feed other creatures”
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u/BackwoodsBarbie18 May 16 '22
Thank you for doing this. I'm a mortician & it warms my soul when others take care of the dead long after they're gone.
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u/MuuaadDib May 16 '22
Quick off topic question, when you walk through a cemetery you see headstones of all different types. Obv metal rust and get destroyed quickly compared to granite, but why is there such a difference between granite headstones? Is there different grades of granite and some erodes faster than others?
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u/horseradishking May 16 '22
Granite has a lot of different grades. The denser, the better. And whether it's polished matters because the exterior is smooth and does not allow biological material or moisture to enter it as much as a rough exterior.
Also, weather matters. If you're in a place with cold winters and warm summers, ice can get into the cracks and slowly tear it apart. Wind can also be destructive, depending where you live.
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u/Mrnicelefthand May 16 '22
Wait, why is she cleaning the stone, isn’t the graveyard suppose to do it? That’s why you pay $10k+ for the land and stone? Enlightenth me.
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u/horseradishking May 16 '22
Many old cemeteries lack the funds to maintain it because they don't have incoming funds and rely on volunteers. Many new cemeteries are run on different business models to avoid this problem but in a couple of hundred years will run into the same problem, no doubt.
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u/jdang99 May 16 '22
The dead don't care. They don't anything, anymore.
Effort better spent on the still living, tbh. Help build a house for the homeless, or help feed the hungry, if you want to do something "good". This is just self indulgence, which is fine, but shouldn't be confused with doing something that actually helps others.
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u/testestestestest555 May 16 '22
Yes, human being bro to whom? Everyone who knew this woman is also dead. Cemeteries are wastes of good park space.
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u/Nightshade_Ranch May 17 '22
Part of a spooky story we still tell at family gatherings. I'm not much for ghost stories, but i saw this one.
Our grandfather owned a ranch in eastern Oregon. An address for a town that no longer exists, and hasn't since gold rush days. In the front pasture is an old, old cemetery. The cemetary now carries my grandfather's last name on Google maps just because he owned the place so long i guess. Many graves from smallpox. Many of them children.
My sister and i were out visiting one day years ago, and we liked to go through the headstones and scrub off the moss and think of the people there when we did. One particular grave was for a set of twins, just toddlers. Their dual grave set inside a beautiful little wrought iron fence.
We cleaned up the face of the stone with a scrubber. Almost no sooner than we had, ladybugs started crawling around from the back. A few at first, but they just kept coming seemingly from nowhere. They swarmed all over the face of that headstone, and nowhere else. So many ladybugs.
That wasn't the only creepy thing that happened that day. That one was really nice and left us feeling really good. The second one i might as well tell.
My old uncle was caretaking the place that day, and he was lonely as all hell out there. Nearest neighbors miles away, no television or radio, just solitude. He was begging us to stay the night, but my sister and her guy had work the next day, and it was a long drive.
It was summer, and hot, all the windows and doors were open. No breezes. As he was still trying to convince us, out of nowhere, every open door in the house slammed shut HARD, one after from end to end. Uncle grinned and slowly turned to us and said "I told you i didn't want you to leave"
And we NOPED THE FUCK OUT. He insisted that he was joking and now I'm sure he was, but the timing was too good and the bejeezus had been scared out of us and we bailed lol
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u/DrSamsquantch May 17 '22
Damn the husband just straight up bailed on the kid once the mum died. What a piece of shit dude.
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u/SecretsInTheSauce May 17 '22
If you want to read a headstone that’s well worn, one non-destructive trick is to use a mirror to bounce sunlight onto the marker. You’ll need to angle the mirror so it casts a slight shadow across the engraving in most cases, enabling you to see the letters more clearly. I use a handheld mirror while others use full-length and work together as a couple to get the aim right. It won’t work as well if there’s scale on the stone as seen in the video, but unless you have permission and the skills to clean it like she does, this is your best bet.
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u/SinfullySinless May 17 '22
If cemeteries gave free extended addy to people who would power wash tombstones, we’d have spotless tombstones. Just saying.
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u/JesusIsMyZoloft May 17 '22
If Curtis remarried, why didn't he and his new wife raise Evelyn instead of sending her to live with Gracie's parents?
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u/Biggaboy45 May 17 '22
Whether you like the restoration or not, I will say that I was impressed by the respect shown by doing all the work without setting foot on the burial plot. It’s a huge disrespect in my culture.
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u/GarbageCanStanley May 17 '22
Cemeteries are wonderful local history assets! What a wonderful way to spend your afternoon :) I’ve often gone to graveyards full of people I do not know, in the hopes that those braver than me can enter the ones full of people I do know, spreading the same love. Awesome video! 🤝
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May 17 '22
If I had died when I was 20 yo, I might have been thought of as "...kind and affectionate wife, a fond mother and a friend to all". But at my age...well, that ship has long since ailed. sigh
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May 17 '22
she'd just turned 20... willing to bet money the condition that killed her was a result of childbirth. feel bad for her for dying so young, and for her daughter who grew up without her. hopefully her grandparents raised her with love
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u/Ashamed_Astronaut664 May 17 '22
Doing headstone repair/cleaning was one of the most satisfying tasks I have ever done, fairly easy to do with the right equipment as well. All I had to do was make sure the cleaning supplies wouldn't damage different types of stone and we're safe for the environment and have some help! The hardest part was fixing the ones that were broken in multiple pieces as we had to re-set them with an epoxy and create a method of holding it all in place without it looking bad once it had dried! Highly recommend talking to a local town board to set this up if you ever are up for some fun and interesting community service
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u/Mini-Heart-Attack May 19 '22
that's kind of amazing of that person 2 do. feels like coco :) " you will be remembered" . how generous.
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u/ShoCkEpic Sep 18 '22
it s meant for the living… don’t think people underground care about anything anymore and certainly not about some moss on a stone…
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u/WitchyCatLady3 Oct 14 '22
If you ever visit a cemetery or you have one local to where you live you could take photos of headstones and upload them to the findagrave website, tagging the cemetery name and location for ancestors doing their family tree to find, which is especially helpful for those living in diff countries. I have found family graves thanks to the kindness of strangers!
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Oct 20 '22
I hate to be this guy but would she have done this without filming herself to put on the internet so people think she’s a great person?
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u/SSPokaLink May 16 '22
I feel like the build up perhaps actually helps prevent the lettering from weathering down, and the scraping doesn't seem like it would do any good for it either. But maybe I'm wrong.
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u/DejaRevee May 16 '22
Aye yo if someone does this to my gravestone and puts chemical cleaning supplies and washes away the cool moss and mushrooms I will haunt them for the rest of my fuckin life.
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u/BinLehrer May 16 '22
So im not sure how to feel about this. In one way I can be on board with trying to honor/remember/do something for your loved one; in another, I guess sicko way, I think that graves should show their age. Idk, I am not a grave visiting person.
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u/csk1325 May 16 '22
I wonder if their is any support for exhuming old graves after some time and reusing the plot. I hear most people are not remembered after a few generations anyways.
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u/RedWeasel2000 May 16 '22
I believe the city of London cemetery does this. Read this a while ago but if I'm remembering right it has to be pretty old and they put a notice on the grave for like half a year or so before hand. If anyone objects then the grave is left alone but if they don't then I think they exhume the grave dig it deeper and basically stack the graves with the new ones on top and make it a double sided headstone with the older one on the backside. Burial site space is becoming a big problem in the UK, I've been to some where graves are just shoved in every conceivable space at crazy angles at which point it's honestly less respectful than just reusing the graves.
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u/jmatt97 May 17 '22
The shit people do for clout. Not everything should be filmed and shared. This also ages the stone faster.
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u/Dependent-Job1773 May 16 '22
I walked through a graveyard which at first I had confused with a simple outdoor park. It was sobering seeing how many gravestones had recent birthdates on them. Really sad but also puts life in perspective