Collette Monuments commemorates the dead with images etched in stone.
By Daniel Hartill
Staff Writer

LEWISTON – Donald Collette unfolded the photograph of a 13-year-old girl and imagined her likeness in stone.

In the coming days, he would lay the picture against granite and follow her contours with a diamond-tipped stylus. Then he would add the detail: her eyes, her smile and the light on her face. Somewhere below would be the dates: her birth and her death.

Collette could do it faster. Instead of working on many stones at once, he could work only on this one, etching the granite until the young girl’s image spreads across the polished surface. It would force him to stare at the girl’s smile too long, though.

“It does affect us,” Collette said. “We wouldn’t be human if it didn’t.”

His family has been making monuments for decades.

Donald’s father, Roland, began stoneworking in 1946. Roland started Collette Monuments 25 years later, creating the business for his three sons. Bruce, Marc and Donald, who began at 15, are still there.

The business now includes cranes and trucks, a stockpile of granite from Vermont quarries and about a dozen employees.

Computers have sped up the design process. Tools have become more precise. It’s still an art, though.

“You have to be an artist,” Donald Collette said, holding the electric stylus in his hand like an expensive pen. Besides, tastes have broadened.

People want images on memorials. They want something of the person who died: their hobbies, likes and loves.

“A memorial is not for the person who died,” Collette said. “It’s for the people who lived.” They are searching for something to pay respect and honor, lest their loved ones be forgotten.

Their requests don’t surprise him anymore.

“I’ve done everything you can ever imagine,” he said.

Many of the stones now have scenes of lighthouses, waterfalls, rivers or lakes. In them, Collette draws couples and singles, fishermen and hunters, campers and hikers. They are riding in boats, cars, on motorcycles and airplanes.

The variations go on and on.

The artwork adds little to the cost of a stone. Rates are based on the size, color and finish of each monument. A large one might cost $1,000. The price can rise to $10,000 or more for large, municipal-sized pieces.

The company has designed a 10-foot-high monument for Lewiston’s Veterans’ Memorial Park. Groups have raised about $21,000 of its $40,000 cost. The Collettes also created the Muskie Memorial in Rumford.

For the private memorials, Donald Collette gets ideas from greeting cards and postcards. And people often come up with their own ideas. They ask for photos to be recreated in stone: pets, homes or favorite views. And there are other items that defy categorization.

At one family’s suggestion, he decorated a stone with a foot slipping on a banana peel. Years later, he made it again for another customer who added the words “Oops, I slipped.”

His favorite is an image he created for a tree cutter. The stone was simple, with the last name across its face. Around the name was the outline of a chain saw.

The design is one among 5,000 he has collected. Every time Collette creates one, it gets digitized and saved in a computer.

The index creates an easy reference for the people who come in, typically a few weeks after a death. For most, the grief is still strong.

“Time has lapsed,” he said. “They’re ready to deal with it. People open up.”

Sometimes, it’s a combination of sadness and pride, like the parents of the 13-year-old girl. They brought the photo and asked for her image to be etched in granite.

“They want that posted so everybody could see that beautiful face,” Collette said.

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