FARMINGTON — Motorists and locals taking a stroll past the Riverside Cemetery, located on Farmington Falls Road next to Riverside Greenhouses and Florist, will notice some of the gravestones are looking a little more clean and standing up a little straighter. Over the summer, members of the Farmington Historical Society [FHS], led by Deborah Probert, have been hosting classes on cleaning gravestones, along with collecting data on each stone.

Probert and several other members met for the final time on Sunday, Oct. 8, to spend a few hours cleaning off gravestones that had built up dirt and debris on them. They were originally scheduled to meet on Saturday, Oct. 7, but had to reschedule due to the rain.

According to Probert, she and five other volunteers managed to clean 22 stones before wrapping up at 3 p.m. Based on her rough estimates, they have cleaned over 200 gravestones since they started in May, specifically targeting memorials in the front row.

“It’s nice to drive by later and see the ones you cleaned and how nice they look,” Rita Cantor of the FHS said. Counting Sunday, she joined the FHS in cleaning gravestones three times over the summer with this summer being her first time taking the class.

“It’s very rewarding,” she added.

For Probert, she has been cleaning gravestones in Riverside Cemetery since 2014. A retired public school teacher, Probert said her first workshop, hosted by Maine Old Cemetery Association for cleaning gravestones was a result of genealogy as she learned how to clean a gravestone that belonged to a family member.

“The first workshop I went to was because I had a family member down on the coast,” she said. “I don’t have any family members here in Farmington, but I just feel the need for preservation.”

Probert supplies the tools for the students to use, which include brushes, water, and several jugs of D/2 Biological Solution, a biocide commercial product used to kill or control the spread of harmful microorganisms like bacteria and viruses.

“It is used to kill mildew, mold, lichen and moss,” Probert explained. “It’s used professionally by contractors on vinyl siding and asphalt roofing, and it does not damage [the environment], and I asked around. It doesn’t kill grass, it doesn’t hurt insects, it doesn’t hurt human hands.”

“You don’t want to get it in your eyes,” she added.

Probert also added that as they were cleaning stones, they were gathering data such as names, dates of birth and death and even a drawing of the gravestones. She also added that they will document any veterans that are not marked with a flag and make sure that is fixed, and she even got the groundskeeper involved.

“He’s doing a great job,” she said. “When he finds a veteran stone that is documented on the stone, but there’s no flag marker, he is letting us know. One of our goals is to get flag markers for those veterans and make sure that they are documented.”

“There are Civil War veterans, there are Revolutionary War veterans, there are Spanish American War veterans,” she continued. “This cemetery was formally founded in 1858, but a lot of older stones are from family plots around the town that were moved here.”

Probert says she is working with the University of Maine at Farmington to update the map of the cemetery, as well as collecting data on the stones and uploading it to www.findagrave.com.

Farmington local and member of the FHS David Spenciner added that he had a lot of family in the cemetery, stretching back five generations, and coming to clean the stones is giving him a chance to reconnect with those family members.

“Some of these old stones are my family as well,” he said. “Which is just – to be honest, it’s just awesome.” Going on his third class in cleaning gravestones, he hopes that someday, when he is laid to rest, that someone will come along and clean his gravestone.

Copy the Story Link