After a discussion about the importance of repairing the gravestones of Elder James Gray and his wife Anna at the annual business meeting, Custodian Jon Gale engaged Jess Davis , a gravestone restoration expert. Jess is a teacher living in Brownfield, Maine, and has been restoring cemeteries and gravestones for over 17 years. She follows best practices set out by the Association for Gravestone Studies (AGS).

  An article in the Portland Press Herald describes her work, "Jess Davis has spent years restoring cemeteries in and around the small Oxford County town and this year started making stones for graves that have been unmarked for generations." You can read more about her by following this link to a story in the August 31, 2024 issue of the Portland Press Herald.  https://www.pressherald.com/2024/08/31/in-brownfield-history-is-being-reclaimed-one-gravestone-at-a-time/

Jess and her assistant, Alec Taliaferro, came on September 19th to repair the two Gray gravestones as well as the gravestone for brothers Benjamin Frank Barnes and Elijah Barnes.

The James Gray and Barnes gravestone bottoms had weakened and fallen out of their slotted bases. Both were reset in their slotted bases using sand mortar, designed to be weaker than the stone so the stone will pop out if hit and could be reset. Setting a stone in a harder substance like concrete would cause a stone to break.

Anna Gray’s gravestone had badly crumbled and was placed within a paver frame. In the future the Association plans to place an additional marker at Anna's stone showing the portion of the inscription now missing. Her death date was 29 July 1858 at age 77.

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Photos of Repair in Progress and the Final Result

Gravestone Repair Workshop

Gravestone repair expert Jess Davis conducted a workshop at the Elder Grey Cemetery on Saturday, September 17, 2022. A few interested folks came to learn the best practices, not objecting to getting a little dirty in the process.