My g-g-g-g-grandfather had a brother, John. I knew a lot about John since he was Justice of the Peace in Marietta, Pennsylvania,Town Treasurer and generally well known. Census data, City Directory data, newspaper articles abounded. I did not know when he died or where he was buried. I had assumed he had died in Marietta . . . rightfully so.
In the fall of 2005, on a walk through Marietta Cemetery, my husband and I found his wife and two of his children. Next to them was a headstone, face down in the dirt and once again, we assumed it was John . . . and once again, rightfully so.
Jane’s headstone was broken in half and the top half was leaning against the bottom half. We went home and my husband got a heavy duty digging bar to lift the headstone and I got a bucket and rags to clean it. We had our work cut out for us. The next picture is what the headstone looked like right after it was put back on it’s pedestal. That’s my shadow and Jim’s arm.
The next picture shows the headstone as it is beginning to dry and how easy it was to read it when the mud was still damp.
. . . . and this shows the headstone before it’s bath. It is now standding tall and waiting to be read by the next person looking for John Auxer!
And then we put Jane’s together so we could take a picture of it. Notice how the headstone has aged in two different ways. The bottom of it must have been covered for quite awhile.
We must go visit the Auxer site again. I think the spring may yield some awesome colors, just as that fall day did back in 2005!
Another way to read old tombstones is to rub flour on it, same as used the mud. Make sure you take a dust brush along to brush off tombstone after finished.