Best way to clean a headstone

[dkryan]

I will be going on vacation and I have a 12 hour layover in Newark, NJ. I will be getting a day room at one of the airport hotels. My grandparents are buried in a cemetery right next to EWR airport. I want to go visit their grave site and clean up their headstone. I need some recommendations to what product i can use that will fit into my suitcase and be under 4oz per TSA. I’m thinking vinegar and some toothbrushes. What other cleaning products would you use? Thanks.

Consider advice from the headstone source; call one or two local headstone dealers in your area, tell them what you want to do and ask their advice.

 

[ecotourist]

We spend a lot of time in cemeteries (some people are like that).

First of all find out where the headstone is located. Contact the relevant office and find the location and if possible get a map.
The Find a Grave website might be helpful https://www.findagrave.com/

There are 2 main kinds of headstones - marble and granite. Marble (a soft white colour) would be very easy to damage. Granite (grey, black, reddish) is much tougher stuff. There are numerous websites with recommendations but it basically comes down to "less is more". I wouldn't use vinegar unless it's specifically recommended. It might even dissolve marble.

 

[ecotourist]

My grandparents (who died before I was born) and a few other relatives are buried in a village near where I grew up. My wife's great grandfather happens to be buried nearby too. We used to get there every few years.

Over time bad stuff happens to gravestones. They sink, tilt, fall down, get surrounded by brush, etc.

My much older cousin paid for repairs about 15 years ago. It was my turn about 5 years ago. It doesn't cost very much but you have to keep up with nature.

 

[BigCahuna]

My grandparents (who died before I was born) and a few other relatives are buried in a village near where I grew up. My wife's great grandfather happens to be buried nearby too. We used to get there every few years.

Over time bad stuff happens to gravestones. They sink, tilt, fall down, get surrounded by brush, etc.

My much older cousin paid for repairs about 15 years ago. It was my turn about 5 years ago. It doesn't cost very much but you have to keep up with nature.

One thing I found out years ago is, when a cemetery say it offers "Perpetual Care", that really means they will cut and trim the grass around the stones, and plow the roads if applicable. It does not cover the cleaning, or repairs, to head stones or mausoleums. That responsibility usually falls on the family. There are mausoleums by where my father is buried that could use some repairs. The sad thing is most of them are 100 years old or older, and most of the family members are probably dead themselves. So there are no visitors anymore. Broken windows, doors that are falling apart from age, roof leaks, cracked headstones, or ones that have fallen over or been toppled from trees. Some Mausoleums could use a good cleaning out in general. It makes me wonder if being placed in one of them was a good long term plan.,,

 

[ecotourist]

One thing I found out years ago is, when a cemetery say it offers "Perpetual Care", that really means they will cut and trim the grass around the stones, and plow the roads if applicable. It does not cover the cleaning, or repairs, to head stones or mausoleums. That responsibility usually falls on the family. There are mausoleums by where my father is buried that could use some repairs. The sad thing is most of them are 100 years old or older, and most of the family members are probably dead themselves. So there are no visitors anymore. Broken windows, doors that are falling apart from age, roof leaks, cracked headstones, or ones that have fallen over or been toppled from trees. Some Mausoleums could use a good cleaning out in general. It makes me wonder if being placed in one of them was a good long term plan.,,

In Norway you don't own a grave-site in perpetuity. The graveyard is an area for family to visit during the memory of that person. As I understand it, you 'buy' the grave site for a period of time (many years) and then unless you 'buy' it again it becomes available for redevelopment. Their soil destroys the bones completely. The grave marker is removed and leaned along the graveyard fence.

While this is not what generally happens in North America, it makes sense. Graveyards are prime locations which you wouldn't want to expand indefinitely. Some of these graveyards have been there for many hundreds of years and yet have stayed relatively small. And a visitor can sort through the many gravestones along the fence if they want to see an ancestor's headstone.

My great grandfather has 2 grave sites, one at Salmon Arm, BC and the other at New Finland, Saskatchewan. Neither one has a marker. I'd put one up for him if I knew where he was buried. He's obviously only in one of them, but which one? There is no good way to tell. There are 3 possibilities: It is likely that (at least initially) he was buried in Salmon Arm where he had retired and later died. His remains could have been dug up and taken back to Saskatchewan when his widow moved back there to live out her final days. In that case the two of them would be buried beside their son who died on 11/11/11 when he was 11 years old. The second possibility is his wife bought the gravesite for him in BC but changed her mind and instead of burying him in BC, took his body back to Saskatchewan to be buried beside their son. The third possibility is they bought the adjacent grave sites for him and his wife at the time of their son's death. They eventually retired to BC and when he died was buried there and his body stayed there.

No matter what, my great grandmother returned to Saskatchewan where she eventually died and was buried beside their son.

 

[BigCahuna]

In Norway you don't own a grave-site in perpetuity. The graveyard is an area for family to visit during the memory of that person. As I understand it, you 'buy' the grave site for a period of time (many years) and then unless you 'buy' it again it becomes available for redevelopment. Their soil destroys the bones completely. The grave marker is removed and leaned along the graveyard fence.

While this is not what generally happens in North America, it makes sense. Graveyards are prime locations which you wouldn't want to expand indefinitely. Some of these graveyards have been there for many hundreds of years and yet have stayed relatively small. And a visitor can sort through the many gravestones along the fence if they want to see an ancestor's headstone.

My great grandfather has 2 grave sites, one at Salmon Arm, BC and the other at New Finland, Saskatchewan. Neither one has a marker. I'd put one up for him if I knew where he was buried. He's obviously only in one of them, but which one? There is no good way to tell. There are 3 possibilities: It is likely that (at least initially) he was buried in Salmon Arm where he had retired and later died. His remains could have been dug up and taken back to Saskatchewan when his widow moved back there to live out her final days. In that case the two of them would be buried beside their son who died on 11/11/11 when he was 11 years old. The second possibility is his wife bought the gravesite for him in BC but changed her mind and instead of burying him in BC, took his body back to Saskatchewan to be buried beside their son. The third possibility is they bought the adjacent grave sites for him and his wife at the time of their son's death. They eventually retired to BC and when he died was buried there and his body stayed there.

No matter what, my great grandmother returned to Saskatchewan where she eventually died and was buried beside their son.

I've watched videos from other countries where it appears they kinda make it a party, when a family member's body has to removed from their grave. The definitely don't do that here. There are some very expansive cemeteries here. But I don't think anyone would be in favor of using that ground for anything but for what it is. On the other hand, it's sad and depressing when you can look online and see how many cemeteries have been forgotten about, and are in terrible condition. Even fairly new what I call " Coffin Condo's", that have been left only to have the earth and nature take them over and collapse.,,,

 

[MrGraybeard]

I accompanied my wife on a genealogy research trip to central Indiana, where her great-grandfather died young around the turn of the 20th century. We eventually found the cemetery where he was buried, and it was in shambles. Headstones, whole and in pieces, were strewn everywhere. We read somewhere that at one point a rumor spread that somebody had buried gold with a corpse, and some inept grave-robbing attempts had resulted.
Amid the wreckage were these massive century plants, common graveyard foliage in years past.

 

[MrGraybeard]

In Guanajuato, Mexico, there is a museum of exhumed bodies called the mummy museum. Families once had to pay a tax on cemetery plots, and if they didn't keep up the payments their loved ones were dug up and placed on display. Here's a Wikipedia link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mummies_of_Guanajuato
We've been to the so-called Bone Church of Sedlec, Czech Republic. In the Middle Ages a monk made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and returned with some soil that he sprinkled in the churchyard. As a result, everybody wanted to be buried there. With limited space, the bodies were exhumed after a couple generations and the bones stored in an ossuary under the church.
By the 19th century the church held the bones of tens of thousands of people. A craftsman was enlisted to put the bone piles in order, and he decided to use them in some interior decorating, crafting them into chandeliers and wall adornments. Another wiki link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedlec_Ossuary

 

[ecotourist]

I've watched videos from other countries where it appears they kinda make it a party, when a family member's body has to removed from their grave. The definitely don't do that here. There are some very expansive cemeteries here. But I don't think anyone would be in favor of using that ground for anything but for what it is. On the other hand, it's sad and depressing when you can look online and see how many cemeteries have been forgotten about, and are in terrible condition. Even fairly new what I call " Coffin Condo's", that have been left only to have the earth and nature take them over and collapse.,,,

In Norway apparently the entire body including the bones is completely gone when the grave is reused. The soil may be acidic or something.

In Scandinavia there isn't very much land for growing food so keeping graveyards to a minimum makes sense. Graveyards tend to be on well drained, flat areas with good soil. Over 500 or 1,000 years the graves would occupy a very large area if the graves weren't being reused. The churches at some of those graveyards extend back to Viking days, so the graveyard may be literally 1,000 years old, but still only an acre or two in size.

I've seen those abandoned graveyards. They're quite sad. My wife's ancestors are in one of those graveyards in New York state. We didn't dare go in to see the gravestones because of the extensive overgrowth and reports of large rattlesnakes in that immediate area.

 

[BigCahuna]

Boy this topic sure took a left turn, LOL.,,