14 months ago
BRISTOL (NEWS CENTER) -- "For most of us ... this is all that will be left of us." Says Kai Nalenz of Bedford, New Hampshire. That's why the young craftsman started a business restoring old gravestones.
Nalenz was born and raised in Germany, and came to the U.S. to be a TV photographer. But he became interested in the hundreds of old cemeteries in New England, and in the art of saving and restoring the old headstones. Nalenz now operates his own business, Gravestone Services of New England, where he combines modern materials and tools with research, skill and brute strength to rebuild the old granite, marble and slate stones.
That's what brought him to the Old Fort Burying Ground in Colonial Pemaquid. The beautiful spot was the site of one of the earliest English settlements in New Endland - dating to at least 1633, with seasonal visits much earlier. Historians with the group Friends of Colonial Pemaquid say those early settlers did not leave permanent grave markers, but their descendants did. The earliest stone found so far in the cemetery is from1734, but it is believed the spot was a "burying ground" long before that. The cemetery is still privately owned, and overseen by descendants of the family that used to own and farm all the land that now comprises a State of Maine Historic Site, though only a portion of the graves are members of that family. They teamed with the Friends of Colonial Pemaquid to pay for Kai Nalenze to come and restore 30 stones. They're trying to raise money to restore a group of old veterans' stones next.
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For more on Friends of Colonial Pemaquid click here: FRIENDS OF COLONIAL PEMAQUID
For more on Kai Nalenz click here: GRAVESTONE SERVICES
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