SOUTH KINGSTOWN, R.I. — There’s a special group of men that travels around to different cemeteries in Rhode Island with a mission to see that history is preserved and the dead are honored.
Their work isn’t all that glamorous, and they’d likely be the first to admit it. But it’s important work.
A combination of brains and brawn, the Sons of Union Veteran Soldiers Major Sullivan Ballou Camp and VFW Post 916, based here in South Kingstown, do what few others can: they raise up headstones that have fallen over into the ground.
A few people interested in how they do it turned up Saturday at Oak Dell Cemetery to watch them as they set about raising three large, heavy stones.
This was a multi-generational project, in more ways than one. Ben Frail and his dad Bruce are two of the team members involved in securing each stone, carefully using straps and a chain winch on a tripod to lift it up, and properly place it back on its base. This work is all done by hand, no motors involved.
“Last Saturday we were there, unfortunately we were only able to upright one stone because of the heat,” Ben Frail said. The group visited last summer as well.
“Our plan is to upright as many of the stones as we can in Oak Dell that have tipped over throughout the years,” he said.
Their equipment includes tripods 10 feet and 16 feet long, one-ton and two-ton hoists, various straps and chains and two-by-four wooden planks.
“Once (a stone) is up in the air, it’s free-floating at that point so we’ve got to be very careful,” Frail said. They also must make sure each base is level and in the right direction before lowering the stone back onto it.
“One cemetery we were working in, cows had gotten into it and it’s very easy for the cows to push it, they look at them as rocks they’re pushing out of the way,” he added.
The team was working last Saturday on stones marking the graves of members of the Hazard family, a very prominent and well-known name in town.
It took several hours, two different sized tripods and a ladder in order to right the markers of Rowland Gibson Hazard, his son Rowland Hazard, wife Margaret Rood Hazard and their daughter, Caroline Hazard.
David Gates, a local resident and historian involved in the work, said Caroline Hazard, who died in 1945, is the single most influential woman in the town’s history. An author, educator and philanthropist, she was president of Wellesley College from 1899 to 1910.
Industrialist Rowland Hazard, her father, was a state legislator in the 1860s and designed and built the Peace Dale Congregational Church. He died in 1898.
Rowland Gibson Hazard also was an industrialist and politician, and instrumental in founding what was then called the Narragansett Library in the 1850s. The Peace Dale Library was dedicated in his memory in 1891.
Moving the large stones back into their proper positions is never just a job for the team. There’s plenty of banter, historical facts and good-natured ribbing thrown about while they are strapping in a stone, setting up wooden planks to brace it against the base and preparing to pull yards of chain to lift the stone using the tripod rig.
VFW Post 916 Commander Joe ‘Tiger’ Patrick is responsible for a lot of that chit-chat, regularly poking fun at his comrades while he also pulls the chain that operates the stone-lifting winch.
“This is definitely the most G-rated of our raisings so far,” Patrick said.
The Sons of Union Veteran Soldiers has been caring for cemeteries since its formation in 1888, Frail said. It’s been working in Oak Dell for a little more than 18 months. Members range in age from their teens to their 80s.
“Our organization is based on making sure those that fought for the Union in the Civil War are never forgotten,” he said. But their work is not just limited to veterans.
The groups have a list of cemeteries to tackle, and it’s a long one. But they’ll keep going, Frail said.
“There are so many historic cemeteries that have been forgotten around the state, and there are other groups that do this – it’s not just us. You’re talking maybe 200 volunteers in the state as a guesstimate,” he said.
Their services have brought them as far as Pawtucket and Massachusetts, but they generally stick to Washington and Kent counties; there’s plenty of work there.
“We try to focus on cemeteries that have been completely forgotten about,” Frail said.
"local" - Google News
August 06, 2021 at 07:00PM
https://ift.tt/3fEYCQX
Local groups come together to preserve respect for dead - The Independent
"local" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2WoMCc3
https://ift.tt/2KVQLik
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Local groups come together to preserve respect for dead - The Independent"
Post a Comment