A Different Kind of Nesting

We went by the cemetery to water Lynda's grass.  I'm also trying to clean and restore the headstones of my grandparents, uncle and my Daddy's bronze headstone.  We work a little on each one of the projects when we go to water the grass.  So far I've learned that to restore a bronze headstone like Daddy's you use mineral oil and it restores the finish like magic.  I still have some work to do on the brass borders but the dark spots on the bottom one are actually shadows. 

  My granddaddy Carpenter who passed away in 1949 before I was even born had a military type stone that as far back as I can remember was a white, chalkish looking stone.  I oiled a small piece of the stone that was hidden in the grass and discovered it was actually granite.  After polishing the whole stone it was gray with black spots and beautiful.  Now I'm scraping the dirt out of the deeply carved letters and numbers.  That is tedious but we work a little on it and then move on to another one.

My mama passed away when I was two.  Her stone is granite and a darker gray and flat.  It has about half of it darker so I'm trying to gently scrub whatever the black discoration is.  I put a little oil on the stone when I oiled the others last week.  Today I took a little bit of dawn detergent and rubbed a corner of the darkened area.  When I rinsed it, it was the original lighter color.  Since we have to haul water from the back of the cemetery in a large watering can we are limited with how much we can do at one time.  My uncle's stone looks like the lettering might have had some type of ink put into the letters and numbers to make them be easier to read but they appear to be running down the stone in places.

I've seen this on a lot of other stones and am going to have to research this and talk to people who are knowledgeable about tombstone restoration and cleaning.  I've read a lot on the internet and watched a lot of demonstrations on YouTube and that has really helped.  I tried a recommended gentle cleaner by using hydrogen peroxide, water, and dawn dish washing liquid.  That has done the best of all.

There is so much I don't know about the whole process of cleaning and restoring tombstones.  I've mastered the bronze one.  Now I need anyone who has good options that has worked for you to comment.

Lynda's head stone is going to be polished black granite so we can have our design etched into the stone. It will be ready to install about the second week in November.  It has been very comforting to work on the family stones while I'm there checking on Lynda's grass.  I've decided it's something like we mothers do when we are getting ready to have a baby.  It's called nesting.  I don't know what it's called when we have buried a child and tend to the grave site in the same fervor as we prepared for their nurseries before they were born.  Yes, I know it's called grief but I believe it's also a form of nesting when all we can do is tend to the final resting place.