Church Volunteers Restore Historic Gravestones in Pine Grove Mills

This story originally appeared in The Centre County Gazette.

PINE GROVE MILLS — For the third consecutive year, members of St. Paul Lutheran Church spent a day of service at the historic Pine Grove Mills Cemetery, carefully cleaning and restoring gravestones that decades of weather had darkened and worn.

The cemetery is located on South Nixon Road in Pine Grove Mills in Ferguson Township.

The cleanup marked the congregation’s participation in the annual day of service of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, known as “God’s work. Our hands.” Each September, ELCA congregations across the country step out of the pews and into their communities to serve, and for St. Paul that service began close to home, in the cemetery the church has owned and cared for since 2011.

A group of eight to 10 volunteers worked their way across the grounds, in three steps, applying D/2 Biological Solution, a gentle, preservation-grade cleaner used by the National Park Service and national cemeteries to care for historic stone, lightly scrubbing the markers, then lightly pressure washing the stones. D/2 loosens the decades of lichen, moss and biological staining.

Markers that had become difficult or impossible to read were left clean and legible once again, their carved names, dates and inscriptions restored to view.

The cemetery they tended carries more than 125 years of local history. The Pine Grove Mills Cemetery Association was organized in 1896 and incorporated by the Centre County Court that same year, with the earliest burials dating to that first summer. The association maintained the grounds for more than a century until, in May 2011, ownership passed to St. Paul Lutheran Church. Today, the cemetery spans 3.42 acres, holds more than 690 interments and includes two columbariums for cremated remains.

“These stones tell the story of Pine Grove Mills, and many of them had grown too weathered to read,” said Ron Strouse, secretary of the Pine Grove Mills Cemetery. “Watching the names of our neighbors and ancestors come back into view is deeply moving. Caring for this ground is our way of living out ‘God’s work. Our hands.’ It is faith put into action, right here at home.”

Members of St. Paul Lutheran Church say they intend to continue the tradition in the years ahead, keeping the cemetery a place of dignity, remembrance, and history for the entire community.

More information about the cemetery is available at pgmcemetery.org.