gravestones

After Grandpa died last year, Mom and Sandy decided to use the stone post that sat in front of their house as their grave marker. It was either use it out here, or give it to one of the cousins. So, the girls decided to use it at the cemetery. Later, after Grandma died, Mom and Sandy went to Ashland to talk to a man over there who carves limestone. He was hired to carve their headstones. Last week, they were installed. This is the result:


Here's a closer view of Grandma's stone showing the detail of the sunflower Gary (the stone mason) carved. The diagonal lines you see are from where the stones were smoothed. Gary drags them behind his tractor on the ground to smooth the stones. It's also what the Kansas pioneers did, except they used a team of horses to drag the stones.

Here's a closeup of Grandpa's stone. Somehow, a windmill is as appropriate for Grandpa as sunflowers are for Grandma. We did tease Mom that the V makes the stone look like "Kirby the Fifth!"

Gary set the stones on a smaller piece of limestone, and set that into a cement base. He then sealed the limestone with a varnish which will protect them from the weather. It also makes the limestone darker than the old stone post.

I like the stones. They are unique and are a local native product. I even think Grandma would be happy with them because they are the biggest headstones in the cemetery! The only thing that Grandma could find to be unhappy about is the fact that her name is smaller print than Grandpas...but we can argue with her that her name has more letters.