Documenting Monuments

Another beautiful day at the Church. This photo faces the southern boundary of the Cemetery. 

Before photo of Caroline Kranz' marble
dome tablet monument. 

After I finished cleaning. Much more legible!

 I spent last Thursday at the Church recording inscriptions, which meant I also had to clean a few monuments in order to be able to see said inscriptions. I was lucky enough to have excellent weather again, and it was a perfect day to have to work with water. I brought my plastic bristled scrub brush, toothbrush, small ice cream bucket, and soap with me and used the taps present at the cemetery. To clean each monument I followed the instructions I learned from the OCSV. I began by dumping water over the monument to soften any lichen or moss present on it. I first attempted to place the soap directly into the water, but the water was too cold and it would not dissolve properly, so I placed it directly on my brush for the remainder of the day. I then scrubbed the monument in circular motions, or in one direction only until the suds got too dirty and I had to rinse it. I did this repeatedly for many of the monuments. I initially intended to follow a regular pattern of cleaning monuments, beginning in the NW corner of the cemetery, but I changed tactics once I discovered all the monuments in this area were mainly modern. I then began by looking at the area immediately north-west of the church as this is where burials began in the 1860s. I began with the Pope monuments and continued north, cleaning any Victorian Era monument that needed it.

Jane MacMillen's stained and hard to discern monument.
She was buried in 1872.  

I only cleaned each monument enough to be able to read the inscriptions and I did not clean those that I could already read as I am on a time limit with my data collection (I have to have my annotated bibliography and database completely done by the end of November). However, I hope to eventually clean these as a volunteer project in the future. Cleaning the monuments was mostly a successful endeavour. But not all monuments indulged their information to me, even after cleaning, due to erosion and severe staining. Some other difficulties I encountered while cleaning was discerning what material each monument is, both for recording and because I do not want to clean delicate sandstone monuments. While this seems like an easy enough goal, some monuments were so dirty/stained and covered in moss that it was very difficult for me to figure out what material they were made out of. I am not very good at picking out stone types to begin with (this is definitely something I need to work on), so stone that is over 100 years old and stained made this task even more difficult for me at some points. A stone I had particular trouble recording was Jane MacMillen's. I honestly have no idea what material this is and I will need to investigate this further in the future. I feel like it might be sandstone, so all I did was soak it in water as I did not want to risk brushing off any material. This particular monument has inscriptions that extend to the very bottom, and they get increasingly difficult to read as you continue. I copied the inscriptions out as best as I could, and Googled the beginning of the phrase later. Wow did I ever get some parts wrong! The bottom inscription is a variation on a hymn entitled "Happy Soul, Thy Days are Ended" by Charles Wesley. After comparing the actual lines to what I could see on the tablet, I could make out the words much better and successfully copied out the inscription. The inscription on the monument differs slightly in word choice from the version I linked to, but is very close. I plan on Googling other epitaphs that I could not read as well. Sometimes I wonder how I would get by without the help of the internet as this tactic will prove invaluable to my data collection. Next Thursday I will continue to clean and record monuments, and hopefully I will be done this aspect of my research by the end of the month. The forecast looks good for next week, so fingers crossed this lovely weather sticks! Here are two photos of the Pope monuments, which are marble and of the domed tablet style. These ones are particularly stained and were difficult to clean. They, along with the Kranz tablets show the clasped hands motif, which was popular in the Victorian Era. This will definitely be one of the trends I will be looking further into in the near future.