Caring for your Cemetery Day, April 25th & 26th

 

Long Overdue Update

 Although this blog has not been updated since 2022, steady maintenance of the cemetery grounds has continued. In 2025, the two primary caretakers stepped down from their volunteer lawn upkeep at the cemetery. One due to a serious illness and the other due to aging out as he is approaching 85 years of age.

However, a passing of the torch has occurred. A new crew of former South End residents and former Evangelical Protestant Church members stepped forward and are now volunteering their time and efforts to continue the lawn care at the cemetery. Some of these former Albanians now live in the southern tier of the Adirondacks; which equates to a minimum of an additional two hours of roundtrip travel time! 

The new crew has done a fantastic job with maintaining the grounds. The grounds never looked better! The cemetery grounds and its permanent residents are blessed to have these volunteers tackle this needed task. The crew have created a Facebook group, "Friends of the Evangelical Protestant Church Cemetery- Albany, NY." Please check out the FB group for further information.

The growing season will be upon the cemetery by early to mid-May. To stay ahead of the work, the crew have joined in with other like-minded individuals in a two day program of volunteerism to support local cemeteries in New York State. The program is called "Caring For Your Cemetery Day." It will be held April 25th and 26th. The focus of these days will be to clean up the cemetery including the perimeter areas and to get things ready for biweekly mowing of the grounds. Raking leaves, brush clearing, and fallen limb removal will probably be on the agenda.

Please consider joining in with helping maintain the cemetery. The grounds are truly beautiful and peaceful. A great bunch of guys and gals are tackling this project, and they can always use an extra set of hands. 

June 2022 Update

 The grass growing season is in full swing. We are trying our best at keeping the lawn mowed and weed wacked. Presently the grounds are well kept. We had quite a battle with the lawn last week. But we were victorious! There are three primary people working on keeping the cemetery looking good. BTW their ages are 81, 63, and 54. 

Weed wacking the grounds is the most labor intensive part of maintaining the cemetery. It takes one person eight full hours to fully weed wack the complete cemetery. This task was timed over a period of three days. Please feel free to stop by and do some wacking. There should be no fear that you might take the grass down too low. Alas, it always always always grows back. And very quickly also. 

Very soon gravestone restoration work will be in full swing. We had a few new casualties. Some stones were found toppled and some broken. The cemetery will always be a work in progress, especially keeping the grass mowed.

Late January 2022

 Spring is on the way! Well, in 49 days. But the time will go fast. Soon, instead of shoveling snow we will be mowing grass. This post is sent out in the hopes of acquiring a riding lawn mower. The lawn mower will be used exclusively at the Evangelical Protestant Cemetery in Albany. Myself and others are still volunteering our time to keep the grounds manicured. Most times the grounds are mowed by people with multiple self-propelled walk-behind lawn mowers. It takes one person 12 hours, solo, to mow the cemetery with a walk-behind mower. It also takes 8 hours for one person to fully weed whack the grounds with a high-powered gas whacker.

 None of us are giving up on the cemetery. The cemetery has come such a long way that we refuse to let it go back to being overgrown and dangerous. During the Spring, Summer, and Fall the grounds are picturesque and beautiful. The Friends of the EvangelicalProtestant Cemetery are looking for a good used or donated riding lawn mower to make our task much easier for our volunteers. Our only request is that the mower must have a deck size of 46" or smaller to fit inside a storage area. Please contact us through this site if you have a good riding lawn mower that you are looking to sell or donate.

Late November 2021 Update

 Below is a short group of photos showing a few of the gravestones that were recently restored. 

The marble gravestone for Frederich W. Hirt who died on 14 August 1874 at age 25 years, 5 months, and 24 days was severely leaning. His stone was moved, the lower marble base was also removed and releveled upon a crusher run and stone dust aggregate foundation. The gravestone was reset upon the lower base.

The marble gravestone for children, Martha Maria Loeper, born 09 April 1869 and died 10 March 1872; and Friedrich Sarl, born 07 August 1873 and died 30 January 1875 was severely leaning. Her stone and base were both removed from the earth and reset upon a level crusher run and stone dust aggregate base. 

Civil War veteran Christopher Marcy had a newer government issued gravemarker delivered. But, somehow it broke. The lower piece become lost and the gravestone was never set into the ground. A slotted base was fabricated so that the gravestone segment could be set upright.

The modern granite Lang monument toppled over in 2020 and was reset level upon a crusher run and stone dust aggregate foundation. The monument shall be cleaned in Spring 2022.

The marble gravestone for Anna, daughter of Charles and Margaretha Strohmaier who died on 14 August 1877 at age 19 years, 6 months, and 8 days was severely broken due to iron pinning. After the lower base was releveled. The broken gravestone was cut flush so that it could be repinned with fiberglass rebar pins. Natural Hydaulic Lime (NHL) 3.5 was also used to attach the gravestone to its base.

November 2021 Update

 Well, nothing has been posted on this blog all Spring, Summer, and Fall. But us volunteers have been working at the cemetery all along. The big project for this season was keeping the lawn mowed. One of our volunteers has mowed the lawn numerous times with a self-propelled walk-behind lawn mower. That takes eleven hours to complete. I timed the weed whacking process and that takes me a full eight full hours to complete and I move quick. Obviously, these tasks are not finished in one day. 

In 2022, to make work easier on us, we plan to get a riding lawn mower. This will make the work so much easier. Please contact us if you know of a good riding lawn mower that someone is looking to part with.

Two days ago, we finished the final lawn mowing and weed whacking sessions for the year. April and May will be here soon enough and the process will begin again. The flags for our veterans that were not looking decent have been replaced. Presently the cemetery grounds are looking fantastic. Over the next week we will be removing the spring and summer artificial flowers from the gravesites. Winter and Christmas flowers are very much welcome! 

With the lawn maintenance tasks and other family duties only a handful of gravestones were uprighted this year including a military gravestone for Christopher Marcy. His stone was broken and the stone was uprighted by placing his stone in a newly fabricated base to hold it upright.

Now that the grass will not be growing until Spring, it is too bad that the weather is too cold for gravestone repair. To be continued...

December 2020 Update

How time flies! December already and we have not posted since June. Much work was accomplished this season and the work is still continuing as we write this.

Without viewing my notes upwards of sixty gravestones were restored. Most of them were smaller in size but we also corrected numerous gravestones that were medium sized. We also reset two obelisks that were leaning severely.

Due to Covid19 and other issues, work was not completed as hoped for finishing the restoration of the graves; but fortunately we have roughly thirty more stones to go. Completion of the project should happen mid Summer 2021.

One enormous plus that occurred this year was when a local neighbor, Mike, became the primary lawn mower of the cemetery grounds. He mowed the grounds at least twelve times this year. This was done with a self propelled walk behind lawn mower. Mike mentioned that it takes approximately eleven hours to mow the grounds. Mike was also instrumental in cutting the grass when it grew to over three feet in length. THANK YOU! Mike.

Presently, the perimeter of cemetery grounds are being cut back. When we began this project scrub brush was growing into the cemetery obscuring rows of gravestones. The brush is being cut back again to stop this before it becomes an issue. 

Unfortunately many photos were not taken of the gravestone restoration. But below are a couple of pictures of gravestones and lots that were highlighted in our June post. 

This is what the Griessman lot looks like today. The sunken gravestones and grave rails have been excavated and raised. Next year flowers will be planted in between the rails.

The gravestone of eleven year old Johann Meyer, son of J. and D. Meyer who died on 22 September 1868 is brightening up nicely. This is an example of the power of D2 Biological Solution. Johann's stone and base fell backwards and sunk into the earth. 

To see what these sites looked like previously, please view the previous, June 2020, post. Have a great holiday season, stay safe, and healthy!