Mt. Wood Cemetery Headstones Get Needed Fix-Up
Trending
A process that has grown into a passion for Randy Jones was a big benefit for Mt. Wood Cemetery this week.
Jones and his Woodsfield, Ohio-based company RanTiff Services will spend several days this week repairing and resetting headstones at Mt. Wood Cemetery. The $16,000 project is sponsored by Boswell Monuments.
During that time, Jones and his company will dig out and re-pour concrete footers, reset bases and repair and reset headstones at six gravesites in the cemetery. Some of those headstones weigh as much as 1,600 pounds, and the process for those larger stones, Jones said, could take several hours.
A former supervisor for the Village of Woodsfield, Jones had been working in general excavation when Ron Gallagher of Gallagher and Sons Monuments approached him several years ago in putting down foundations for headstones for his company. That led to Jones refurbishing headstones around the Ohio Valley. This is his first foray into a Wheeling cemetery, but he has done that work at cemeteries throughout eastern Ohio and other parts of West Virginia.
"Ever since, it's just grown," Jones said. "It's blown up to the point where, if we're not putting in new installs, we're doing foundation repairs."
Jones has always considered himself a history guy, and there's plenty of history in Mt. Wood. Several notable Wheeling citizens are interred there, according to Jay Frey, an officer in the historical preservation society Friends of Wheeling. Among them is Dr. Joseph Thoburn, an Army surgeon who later became a Civil War brigade commander. Thoburn was killed at the Battle of Cedar Creek and Frey said his funeral was one of the largest in Wheeling history.
Thoburn's headstone was one of those Jones was repairing this week.
Jones had never been to Mt. Wood Cemetery before, but was captivated by it the second he walked through the gate.
"I'm amazed by this place, to be honest with you," he said. "We go to a lot of old cemeteries in this radius and this one here is totally amazing. I'm blown away. The mausoleums built into the hillside, you don't see this many mausoleums in this small of a cemetery."
Mt. Wood repairs have been a project for local preservationists for years, Frey said. It started in 2015 when Bekah Karelis spearheaded a movement to repair monuments around the cemetery. More repairs are in the offing, he added.
In June, the Ohio County Cemeteries Foundation was established as a nonprofit organization, with plans to continue restoration at Mt. Wood and to expand to other local cemeteries without active associations and boards of directors. More than 30 cemeteries in Ohio County lack ongoing support or upkeep, Frey said.
If the work continues at Mt. Wood, Jones said he'd love to be a part of it.
"I would love to restore this entire place," he said. "That would be amazing."