WHITSELL link not working for me.see story below..
Relocated cemetery markers being restored with respect
<mailto:gretchen.becker@indystar.com> By Gretchen Becker
Posted: April 23, 2008
Jon Harper is preserving history.
As a contract worker, he is toiling at Crown Hill Cemetery to restore
150-year-old grave markers that came from the Wright-Gentry-Whitesell
Cemetery, which is being relocated to make way for an expansion of I-69.
Harper has cleaned the 36 headstones and footstones and is working to smooth
granite and limestone, worn since the mid-1800s.
"This will double the life of the stone," said Harper, who has worked with
stone for his whole life and been in the cemetery business for 15 years.
"Smoothing them out will make it 100 times better."
The work Harper is doing makes the headstones more legible and makes the
stone stronger, he said. Many of his tools are encrusted with diamonds, the
only material hard enough to do the work,
Harper also is repairing work done by others to fix broken stones or cracks
and is hoping to find matches to broken pieces.
Harper said he restores headstones "as a matter of respect. People spent
money to buy these stones. We should maintain everything that we can."
Time is what it takes the most of to restore headstones, Harper said. Small
footstones take about a day to complete. Larger stones could take a week or
longer. He estimated about 30 days of work to do before the stones can be
reset in concrete.
Established in 1841, the Whitesell Cemetery was in the 8000 block of
Castleton Drive near I-69 and I-465. The remains and stones will be moved to
the pioneer section of Crown Hill Cemetery with a reburial ceremony sometime
in June, said Megan Tsai, Indiana Department of Transportation spokeswoman.
All of the remains will be reunited and reburied just as they were
configured at Whitesell.
Restoration of the headstones will cost $13,000 of the project's $400,000
budget, Tsai said.
Under the direction of INDOT and a private excavation firm, headstones and
footstones were removed. Students and staff from the University of
Indianapolis helped unearth and study remains in 33 grave shafts, which
helped determine gender and family lineage for some unmarked plots, Tsai
said.
"This will make a nice complement to the two (pioneer cemetery plots) that
we already have," said Keith Norwalk, Crown Hill Cemetery president.
Out of respect, when the time comes for reburial, the remains will be moved
from the Southside university to the cemetery in hearses.
INDOT is working to have a pastor from Castleton United Methodist Church
speak at the reburial because its founding pastor, the Rev. James Wright,
was buried in the cemetery. SEE PICTURE at
www.Indystar.com North Indy
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