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Wednesday, January 22, 2003

By Maria Carpico, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

It's 10 a.m. on a bright, blustery January morning, and people are milling about in the cemetery with mirrors, clipboards, umbrellas, flashlights and cameras.

A few are musing over a lichen-covered headstone. At first glance, its inscription is undetectable. But then a mirror is used to reflect sunlight across the face of the stone, highlighting the engraving.

Eyebrows rise, foreheads furrow and a discussion ensues over a number -- is it a three or an eight?

"Pure her soul as were the flowers that enwreathed her lonely brow, passed she like a vision from us and she is an angel now."

-- Mary Agnes Campbell, died April 1, 1874, age 29 years, 7 months, 29 days. Depreciation Lands Museum Cemetery.

Those gathered in the cemetery are using mirrors and other techniques to revive the past because they want to create a permanent record for future generations.

They're members of the North Hills Genealogists, and they've undertaken the ambitious project of cataloging the headstones in all the pioneer cemeteries in the northern suburbs.

A cemetery qualifies as pioneer if it has graves from before 1900. Allegheny County is home to about 500 cemeteries, but no one is certain how many of those can be classified as pioneer.

Ginny Skander, who helped found the genealogists group in 1988, got the idea for the project while researching family grave sites.

"Other genealogy clubs were taking on projects to preserve records, and I had some bad experiences trying to find graves for my own family," Skander said.

A lifelong resident of Hampton, Skander chose that township as a starting point for the work. Her concept became a reality in 1997 when the group published its first book, "Pioneer Cemeteries of Hampton Township."

"The book itself grew out of a need for public service and an urgency to preserve these essentially outdoor records," said Keith Kerr, who was president of the group during the book's completion. The 183-page book lists all Hampton cemeteries and details the pioneer grave sites in Pine Creek Cemetery, Hampton Cemetery and the Depreciation Lands Museum Cemetery.

The book became a valuable tool for the Depreciation Lands Museum when a driver who lost control of his car damaged some headstones in November. The museum used the book to locate the original inscriptions for reproductions on the replacement stones.

Working on the Hampton book inspired the genealogists to continue the work in other areas.

"It occurred to us that it should be a project we could be generating ourselves that someone else could use," said Gary Schlemmer of Middlesex, a 12-year member of the group.

"One by one the years stand vacant, these filled by those we love. One by one the seats are filling, in our Father's house above."

-- Frederick Pfishner, died Feb. 23, 1885, age 49 years. Pine Creek Cemetery

There's a sense of urgency to the group's work.

Unlike modern-day headstones, which are made of granite from out-of-state quarries, the older headstones were made from local materials, usually sandstone or marble, and the inscriptions are getting more difficult to read each year as weathering takes its toll.

Schlemmer compares the headstones to bars of soap. "On a new bar of soap, there is the engraving in the center, and as you use it, the engraving eventually washes away," he said.

In some cases, from the time the group takes its first reading of a headstone until it returns to double check for accuracy, the words and numbers on the stone are gone.

The race is on to preserve these monuments, if only on paper.

So when the call goes out that the group has scheduled readings at a cemetery, six to eight volunteers descend upon the site.

Everyone has his own methods for getting an accurate reading.

The group's president, Donna Booth of McCandless, has found a new technique using a camera. She was having a problem deciphering some of the letters on a headstone and discovered she could see more of the letters by looking through a camera lens.

"I was able to get a few more letters. It's enough that a descendant could get a good clue," she said.

A few years ago, the accepted practice was to spread shaving cream across the stone to fill the impressions, making the inscriptions easier to read. The Association for Gravestone Studies has since determined, however, that shaving cream is damaging to the stone. The greasy emollients in the cream are hard to get out of the porous stones and in time may cause discoloration.

Another popular technique, rubbing tracing paper with a pencil to make an impression of the stone, also can be harmful.

The association suggests methods that do not require touching the stone, such as reflecting light across it with a mirror.

Members of the North Hills Genealogists have found the mirror method to be the most successful. If the sun is not cooperating, they use a black umbrella to block the light and a flashlight to highlight inscriptions.

"It lends itself to a lot of fun, being huddled under an umbrella on a sunny day with like-minded people," said Carol Jo Henderson of the North Side, a six-year member of the group.

The roughly 23 volunteers who work on the headstone readings have spent countless hours studying stones, double-checking information and proofreading texts.

"We read them, record them and type it up. Then a second group is sent out to read the stones again and check against the typed form to see if you can gather any more information," said Irene Dinning, of Aleppo,who joined the group two years ago.

They use local histories, church and cemetery records and Bible passages in an effort to research inscriptions on the stones.

"Our idea was to be exact or forget it," Kerr said.

"She's pillowed on the Savior's arm, where gates are pearl and streets are gold. She's sheltered from life's ruthless storm secure in this happy fold."

-- Hannah Eleanor McCully, died March 14, 1875, age 10 months, 28 days. Pine Creek Cemetery.

The information is compiled on forms that ask the color, condition and location of the stone, along with the inscription and stonemason's name, if it is signed. Several stones have engraved symbols in addition to the inscription.

Elissa Scalise Powell, a certified genealogical records specialist who has been a member of the North Hills group since 1990, explained the meaning of some of the symbols.

"Wheat stands for the harvest, that your life has come full circle. A bouquet of cut flowers is a life cut short, and a thistle suggests a Scottish heritage," she said.

The group often finds family plots and even more often comes across families whose members have died within days and weeks of each other.

"It's sad. You'll see a mother and three kids who died within days of each other. You know it had to be an epidemic," Booth said.

Not all headstones mark a grave. In Pine Creek Cemetery, a Civil War memorial stands for Richard Morrow, who died at age 18 from wounds he received in the Battle of the Wilderness in Virginia. His grave, however, is elsewhere. The stone reads, "Buried by strangers, the precise place of his grave is unknown."

His story is one of many the group has unraveled or at least conjectured about.

Another is that of John Walter, a Revolutionary War soldier. Walter is buried near the intersection of Wyland and Center avenues in Hampton. The grave marker bears his name as well as that of a Capt. J. Irwin.

Questions swirled. Who was Irwin? What was his relationship to Walter? Why wasn't Walter's wife, Catherine, buried with him?

The mystery was solved by Jim Bardonner, the former owner of the property.

Irwin was not buried there, but Catherine Walter was. It was customary to include the name of a deceased soldier's commanding officer on his headstone, but not the name of his wife.

"You're not just finding a date or a name," Dinning said. "You're trying to learn more about the history and culture from which they came."

"We loved this tender little one and would have wished him to stay, but let our Fathers will be done, he shines in endless day."

-- Calvin Cunningham Gilleland, died Aug. 22, 1874, age 3 years, 3 months, 27 days. Depreciation Lands Museum Cemetery.

After five years of work, the group is about to publish a 530-page book listing more than 7,000 names of those buried in Pine and Richland.

Now, members are working on one for Franklin Park, which will include Marshall because that township has only one pioneer cemetery. McCandless may be next on the list. Eventually, they'd like to do all of the northern suburbs.

According to old records, Pine at one time had 15 pioneer cemeteries, but the group was able to find only nine. In Richland, members were able to read five.

In some cases, graves have been unknowingly paved over for roads or housing developments. In other cases, property owners have refused to give permission for members to catalog the headstones.

Such hurdles are frustrating. "We want this to be a lasting memorial to the people who were buried in these cemeteries," Powell said.

Franklin Park has seven cemeteries. Six qualify as pioneer. Two have been recorded and half of the readings are done at Fairmont Presbyterian Cemetery.

Henderson, co-chairwoman of the Franklin Park project, is working on that cemetery's haphazard layout -- graves are every which way, rather than in neat rows. "It looks like they came alive in the middle of the night and fell all over the place at dawn," she joked.

Henderson and Dinning, who also is co-chairwoman of the project, are trying to figure out how to organize the list in the book so specific headstones can be located.

"Some rows won't be straight. We don't want to lose anything because someone may use it as a guide if they visit," Dinning said.

"Sleep on sweet babe and take thy rest. God called thee home. He thought it best."

-- Loyal Kirker Ball, age 7 months, 27 days. Pine Creek Cemetery

The group's total membership numbers 160. Most became interested in genealogy as a hobby and have since become captivated. They find the group fosters a positive environment for beginners as well as veteran genealogy buffs.

"I have a lot of friends who laugh at me for spending so much time in cemeteries," Henderson said.

Booth agreed. "People who aren't into it think you're sick, but it's an education -- even if it's not your family," she said.

Members are gearing up for the National Genealogical Society Conference to be held May 28-31 at the new convention center, Downtown.

In the meantime, they're recording and reliving history, one headstone at a time.

"The Pioneer Cemeteries of Pine and Richland Townships" is available for a pre-publication price of $27 until March 18. Pennsylvania residents add $1.89 tax. After March 18, the price will be $35. Checks may be sent to The North Hills Genealogists, c/o Northland Library, 300 Cumberland Road, Pittsburgh 15237-5455.

"Pioneer Cemeteries of Hampton Township" can be purchased for $14.95 at Rossier's Art Gallery, 9043 Perry Highway, McCandless.

The books also can be ordered at www.northhillsgenealogists.org.