Take a walk around. Look closely.
As you pass through the panoply of area burial grounds, leaves rumpling beneath your shoes, traffic whirring close by or murmuring in the distance, you'll see stones broken in half, bits leaned together like dominoes.
Others are so eroded or gripped by lichen that words are disintegrated, like forgotten conversations.
Some are buried flat in the ground as if they were earthen doormats.
A few are mere shards or blunted columns arranged together, like mini versions of Stonehenge.
A couple are even grown into trees so tall you have to crane your neck to see the tops of them.
These are, indeed, the places where the dead still speak – but slowly, time is muting their voices.
And with the current economic climate, time may get her way.
With just the essentials getting more and more difficult to cover these days, local officials say it's near impossible to set money aside for non-crucial improvement projects like cemetery restoration and preservation.
“Wales is always short of cash,” said Wales cemetery commissioner David Worth. “And I haven't seen stimulus money coming by to repair these old cemeteries.”
Ultimately, over time, competing needs and low municipal budgets have made the maintenance and preservation of historic burial grounds a very low priority, according to a report from the Historic Landscape Preservation Initiative, which did an in-depth study of 32 burial grounds across the state – including Brimfield's Center Cemetery and Sturbridge's Old Burial Ground – in 1999.
But, in some cases, neglect is also due to demand – or, rather, lack thereof. For instance, once a site becomes full and inactive, it is no longer revenue-generating and, thus, “It no longer has or needs sales appeal,” the report states.
Beyond municipal funding, though, state aid is just as scarce. The state Department of Conservation and Recreation, for one, used to provide assistance for historical projects – which would cover graveyard restoration – but that stopped in 2002, according to spokesperson Wendy Fox. What they can offer is technical assistance, she said – that is, suggestions on tactics and methods that towns might try in an attempt to clean up and preserve tombstones. Similarly, a bevy of research is available online; the thrifty searcher can find tips on the best scrubbing and scouring methods and tools for righting stones.
What assistance the state does offer is minimal, and competitive.
Annual grants are available through the Massachusetts Historical Society; this year, the agency gifted $780,000 for 21 projects in cities and towns across the state. Three of those were for cemetery restorations.
Mostly, though, area towns get by on stop-gap repairs – say, if there's vandalism or a stone slowly tumbles forward or backward, nudged by the hand of time. In other cases, locals might take projects on themselves, doing research online to find the best scrubbing and scouring methods and tools for righting stones.
“If we have a problem, we try to take care of it, right then and there,” explained Brimfield cemetery commissioner William Roberts, noting that they've had caretakers delicately repair historical tombstones that have broken. “If we can, we mend our own. We try to keep everything in order and do our best to keep the cemetery looking good.”
The same goes for Wales. “We just repair the immediate problems,” Worth said.
For instance, they've given stones new foundations, repainted when there's been vandalism, and righted 1,000-pound hulks of memorials when they've tipped over. To set them again, holes were drilled into their depths and they were hauled up with machinery. “That took a half a day right there,” Worth explained.
There are no efforts in the works to seek funds for restoration projects, he said, but added that, “I would like to look at it in the future. We don't want to see the stones get any worse.”
Holland cemetery commissioner Patricia Caron also lamented that some “older tombstones are just about falling off,” and explained that the town has discussed cleaning some memorials, but never got beyond talking. As with other towns, the funds just aren't there, she said.
But in some cases, as with Sturbridge, towns have a built-in mechanism through Community Preservation Act funds, which make use of a percentage surcharge on property taxes to raise funds for affordable housing, open space, recreation and historical preservation.
Ultimately, CPA funding is “the key player in the restoration of historic preservation,” said Joe Ouellette, of the Sturbridge historical commission.
The town has roughly $5,500 set aside in its account to do ongoing cemetery maintenance, according to Ouellette. That is undertaken by Fannin-Lehner Preservation Consultants of Concord.
“Over the years, weather, primarily, and the environment play havoc with the stones and they need to be cleaned on a regular basis,” said Ouellette. All told, “It's important to keep traditions alive in Sturbridge.”
Such sentiments are echoed elsewhere. “The burial grounds and cemeteries of Massachusetts are (some of) the richest cultural and historical records of our past,” reads the report from the Historic Landscape Preservation Initiative. “In addition to providing specific genealogical information about our ancestors, they tell a broader story about evolving attitudes towards death, burial and public landscapes.”
Still, not everyone agrees that this means burial grounds have to look like they were dug just yesterday.
Patina – or an aged look – can give a burial ground character, Worth contends. “Sometimes it's good just to leave the patina on. It's age,” he said. “Age on a 200-year-old stone is acceptable.”