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By Madison Hart
InkFreeNews

LEESBURG — John “Walt” Walters stumbled upon graveyard restoration work, quite literally, when he worked for the highway department in Fayette County.

He was assigned to take over the cemetery lawn mowing, when he noticed all the broken gravestones getting in the way of the mower.

“I started looking and instantly seeing, wow, all the artwork, the carvings. It was a shame to see them lying down,” said Walters. “Why didn’t anyone put them back up? So I went to the library thinking there would be ‘Tombstone Repair for Dummies,’ but there wasn’t anything. So I had to look up how they take care of the marble statues … it’s made of the same stone.”

Walters, who now works as the Graveyard Groomer, is restoring 100-year old headstones at the Leesburg Cemetery until Friday, Aug. 16.

John “Walt” Walters

He took a graveyard restoration class that taught how to reassemble stone and build a headstone base. Later he became a member of the Association of Gravestone Studies, which offered a three-day course in Washington, D.C., and an opportunity to work in Congressional Cemetery.

With his newfound knowledge, he approached Fayette County about creating a full-time graveyard restoration position. Impressed with his demonstration, they agreed. It was only four years later that he gave a presentation at a state convention and became so highly in demand that he started his own company, Graveyard Groomer.

“I found graveyards as it found me,” said Walters. “I had a lot of jobs before I turned 40. I learned a lot, but I think I got bored with them. I think there was a directed path. I learned from them, and that’s what makes me really good at this. Sometimes I believe in divine intervention. I think if there’s anything made for me to do, it’s graveyard work.”

Walters has been doing gravestone restoration for 28 years.

Leesburg Cemetery

Leesburg Street Commissioner Craig Charlton invited Walters for a two-week restoration project. The goal of the restoration was to reset fallen headstones, but when Walters arrived he discovered a bigger project.

In the back corner of the Leesburg Cemetery by the field, Walters found a stack of broken gravestones. Walters assumes someone removed these broken headstones to clear the path for mowing.

However, removing the stones meant that the graves were no longer marked. Pieces of many gravestones were mixed together. Walters has begun the process of laying out all the pieces and putting them back together.

“If you think about what those stones are, they’re more than a rock to be misplaced. They were placed by a loved one,” said Walters. “They have things wrote on them that you’ll never find written anywhere else, carved in that stone. To just pick them up and treat them like discard is so wrong … They’re called grave markers because they’re supposed to mark the grave.”

Walters explained how there is a lot of puzzle-solving involved in his job. For instance, he found a sliver of a headstone embedded in the soil. Several inches away, he uncovered an empty headstone base that fit the sliver.

He noticed the sliver had a particular border pattern. He searched the pile of broken headstones and found four more pieces that fit together with the sliver to make a full headstone.

He said he’s already put together 11 headstones from the pile of broken pieces.

To reconstruct these headstones, Walters uses epoxy, mortar and steel pins, if needed, along with ammonia-water for cleaning. He matches names to family plots and uses probes to find bases that grass has grown over. By matching names, dates and bases, Walters can find where the headstones were meant to be.

“(I) just get so involved with it. Think about how good it feels to return something like that back to its grave. Back where it’s supposed to be,” said Walters. “All them people gathered around and said prayers and shed tears. Then all of a sudden someone comes along and picks it up and discards it … It’s saving history too.”

Walters said he doesn’t want to leave the cemetery unfinished, so he’s going to come back to Leesburg on Labor Day weekend to do some pro-bono work with the help of his wife, Mickie.

“We’ll do a whole lot of the puzzle and detective work so it’s not (Charlton’s) dollars. We love it. (Mickie’s) been around me for 28 years doing this stuff too. We’re puzzle-workers … and it’ll take experience to get this yard back together.”

For his next project, Walters will be going to the Pleasant View Cemetery near Clunette.