Best Laid Cemetery Plans

It looks like I accidentally deleted my pre-reunion post detailing my plans for visiting cemeteries in Quebec and the contents of my new cemetery kit, so I'll review it a bit here.

Before heading home from last week's reunion, Mum and I had hoped to visit six cemeteries to pay our respects to our ancestors and photograph their headstones. Our previous attempt three years ago had to be called for weather when the area was hit with six inches of snow the night before our arrival.

Denison/1848-1920

Well, you know about best laid plans, right? I still think we could have completed our mission, but we chose to spend some extra time with our cousins instead. There was also one cemetery we decided to skip on this trip because the cemetery didn't respond to my inquiries for plot numbers before we left, and it is a big cemetery.

As I packed my clothes and other necessities, I also assembled a cemetery kit in a large knapsack on wheels. Inside were:

First aid kit that included a whistle and compass

Sunscreen

Bug spray (containing Deet due to a bad tick season in the area)

Lint rollers (to check ourselves for ticks, they can be very small)

Long dishwashing gloves (again, tick protection)

Gardening gloves

Exam gloves just because I had some

Pruning shears

Cardboard wrapped in foil for directing sunlight on hard to read stones (a large mirror would also work but I was trying to reduce weight)

Soft paint brush for removing dirt from lettering

Spray bottle filled with plain water which I had heard can sometimes enhance the lettering on stone if it is difficult to read/photograph.

Old throw pillow covered in plastic tarp for kneeling on while trimming any overgrowth around flat stones or foot stones.

Crate for sitting on to take photos at the level of the stone.

Extra memory card for camera.

Extra/rechargeable batteries for camera.

Directions because I didn't have cell service in Canada, printed lists of stones, extra paper and pen all on a clipboard.

I also had soft cleaning brushes with me from cleaning Donald's grandmother's headstone, something his parents wanted us to do. We hadn't planned to use them, but we did decide to remove some of the lichen from my great-grandparent's stone. It is a thick, sturdy stone and was practically illegible when we got there. I know that scrubbing stones is controversial and there are plenty of stones we saw and visited that we would not have touched, but this one in particular we thought would be okay. If both of us hadn't had sore backs that day, we probably would have gotten a better result.

George R. Smith M.L.C./Feb 17 1860-Feb 20,1922
Isabella F. Smith/Aug 12 1868-Feb 20 1940

I still had to spray the stone with plain water to get it this legible. I'm not sure if we're going to leave it at this point, or try again with the soft brushes and water on our next visit. I'm sure the stone can take it, but I don't want to damage the raised lettering.

Even though this plot is in the same cemetery as my grandparents, I only remember visiting my great-grandparents once before and had forgotten that George's foot stone included the Masonic symbol, or that he was even a Mason.

All three of these stones must have been something to see when they were new. I hope we can figure out a way to keep them legible and looking as my great-grandparents wanted without harming them.