Benefield: Rural cemetery scores historic tombstone return

The call confirmed what Jonathan Quandt has long believed true — that there are scores of pieces, perhaps even more, of Santa Rosa Rural Cemetery history scattered in homes and properties across Santa Rosa.

Quandt, a volunteer and local historian who leads maintenance at the historic rural cemetery with a crew dubbed the Tombstone Trio, grew up in the neighborhood that surrounds the old graveyard.

He knows there were significant stretches of time, decades even, when the cemetery was more than neglected. It was abandoned and abused.

People drove their cars all over the site. And things were taken: Gravestones, markers and foot stones.

“When I was a boy, people would bring foot stones home and use them as book ends,” he said. “And a lot of people took tombstones home and used them to decorate their backyards.”

But this call was different. The stones in the caller’s possession were crucial pieces to the cemetery’s long history.

The caller, whom Quandt is not naming because he wants to encourage, not discourage, folks from coming forward, said members of his family took the stones from the cemetery decades ago in an act of service.

The caller was, years ago, part of an active volunteer group spending time cleaning up the property. So they took a number of key tombstones home to clean and repair them.

But time, as it is wont to do, got away.

So the stones sat on private property for years.

That was until the former volunteer called the city, gave officials there information on the stones and were put in contact with Quandt.

When Quandt and his wife Carole went to pick up the stones from the caller’s house, the person accompanied them to the cemetery to show the Quandts the area from where the stones were taken.

Quandt, an amateur historian with deep interest in timelines and family lore behind so many of the cemetery’s 5,000 burials, was floored.

“It’s probably the most significant return we have had in years,” he said. “These … come from probably the most historic area of the whole park.”

There were three complete (albeit already damaged) headstones and eight foot stones, all from the oldest burial area in the approximately 16-acre cemetery.

“I would say it’s the oldest and most significant area of the cemetery because of the various people who are buried there,” he said. “It is not so much that they are town officials like the Proctors or the Farmers, but they all had quite intricate histories.”

The dates on the stones place the burials just a few years after the 1854 burial of Thompson Mize, the cemetery’s first.

“I’m really pleased to get them back,” Quandt said. “In some ways, they are in better shape than if they had been laid out there. Of course we might have found them earlier.”

As it is, the massive published catalog of the cemetery’s 5,000 burials does not include record of all of the newly returned stones.

“A couple of these are recorded in our book as ‘stone not present,’” he said.

The pieces, currently housed in a crypt on the property where scores of other pieces of what Quandt calls “orphaned stones” are stored, are in the process of being cleaned by volunteers.

“One of the things I really think about, having been a nurse for so long, is ‘Do no harm,’” volunteer Kit Conover said as she scrubbed a stone on June 22. “So when I’m cleaning them, it’s just ‘Don’t hurt it.’”

It’s simple work, but it’s crucial. Especially with stones that reach this far back into the cemetery’s history, Conover said.

“What I really wanted to do as a kid was be an archaeologist,” Conover said as she sprayed D2 algicide, a biodegradable solution that removes mold, algae, mildew, lichens and air pollutants from the stones.

She then used a soft nylon brush to go over the stones. Next she used a toothbrush.

The headstone she worked on this day was for Alice Harris, who died in 1860. She was 5 years old. She was the daughter, as carved into the marker, of “J & P Harris.”

A second stone was for George W. Lock, son of J.N. and A. Lock. He was an infant.

While Alice’s stone is decorated with a carved flower, George’s has a soaring bird and an epitaph: “Happy infant early blest. Rest in peaceful slumber rest.”

Both Alice and George’s markers were broken in half.

After Conover finishes her cleaning work, members of the Tombstone Trio will work to reset the broken pieces in a way that makes the breaks harder to detect.

“They are in pretty good condition for restoration,” Quandt said.

The timing of the reinstallment is dependent on a number of factors, including how well the pieces fit back together, Quandt said.

But soon, the crucial plot at the southwest corner of the cemetery will have key headstones returned to their rightful place.

“It’s huge,” Conover said. “We haven’t gotten complete tombstones like this, I don’t think in forever. It’s amazing to get the fully formed tombstones.”

It’s that kind of find Quandt wants to encourage more of. He knows there are more folks out there who have stones in their homes or yards and would like to return them but feel burdened, or guilty, or don’t know who to call.

“We are begging for them and occasionally one will come to us,” he said. “We just don’t get these stones back.”

Quandt and city officials will be happy to take stones back and are not interested in penalizing anyone for their removal years ago when the cemetery was nearly abandoned.

"Our stance is that we just want the recovery of the historical items,“ said Kristi Buffo, city of Santa Rosa spokesperson.

That grace period covers just decades during the last century when the cemetery was sorely neglected, Buffo added.

Those pieces that walked off during the dark years of the burial grounds would be welcomed back with great enthusiasm, Quandt said.

“No questions asked,” he said. “We are not pointing fingers. We are just so happy to get them back.”

You can reach Staff Columnist Kerry Benefield at 707-526-8671 or kerry.benefield@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @benefield.