1 • Wednesday, July 18, 2018 - The Scoop Today/Shopper’s Guide
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Restoring historic Morseville Church and Cemetery memorials By John Day
On any country road a traveler may see an old small church. The construction of these small houses of worship is simple. There are no grand staircases or towering spires. There are rarely any additions that have been added to the original structure. Alongside these tiny places of worship is the churchyard which is the congregation’s cemetery. Peppered across the fields adjacent to the church are stone monuments that memorialize the life of the departed one who lies beneath the marker. The graying stone shrines vary in size and shape ranging from simple upright plaques to obelisks. No matter what the design or the status of the person entombed beneath, in many instances the once bright white marble has become discolored, covered with lichens or sunk in the turf at some odd angle. Time and the elements have worn away the inscriptions on the markers and made the stone brittle. A great number of the headstones have fallen over or been broken. The Morseville Church near Stockton, a once thriving congregation, now stands empty. Services are conducted only twice each year. The cemetery on the east side of the nineteenth century building has more than its share of gravesites that have been ravaged by time. Several of the plots no longer have a marker at all. Some markers have sunk so deep the sod has grown over them. Others have toppled off the base, been broken and discarded. Many, although standing, have been broken. Near all of the monuments have become discolored and covered with grime and lichen. Bob Heuerman, Jo Daviess County Board member lives nearby and has had an interest in the history of the area which was once Morseville. This past week Heuerman and a few friends were at the Morseville Cemetery making things right. The group came armed with a backhoe, stone and concrete. The group consist-
ing of Heuerman, Mike Beatty, Jim Vaupel and Jerry Hayes have been doing repair and restoration work in nearby church and farm cemeteries for some time. Heuerman said, “Mike and I went to Springfield and took a course in preservation and became certified to do this kind of work. It started as an effort through the American Legion, Post 449 in Stockton to restore the markers on veterans’ graves, regardless of the era in which they served. Look around this cemetery and you’ll find veterans that served in the war of 1812 and the Blackhawk War. “We’ve done work at the Townsend and Berriman cemeteries. Doing a headstone we noticed a marker on the adjoining grave that had been broken and turned over. We picked it up to examine it and found it to be that of a young child that died long ago. That was it. We knew we had to begin restoring these sites no matter who was buried there.” The process of restoring these sites is delicate and requires expertise. The old marble stones cannot come in contact with metal shovels or blades because the stone is so brittle. Markers cannot be cleaned with a power washer because the risk of obliterating the inscriptions are too high. The cleaning solution and epoxy used for repair runs at forty-five dollars per gallon. Heuerman said, “We’ve been fortunate because of the generosity of others. Stone, gravel and equipment such as this loaned backhoe were provided by Doc’s Stone & Quarry and Schuldt Farms. There’s a lot to be done here at Morseville. A number of graves have no stone whatsoever. “Fortunately, around 1970 Melody Heidenreich and some others with an interest in local history did a survey and layout of the cemetery. That will allow us to determine what markers we may need to replace. For more information or to make a contribution you can contact Bob Heuerman at 815 947 4821 or leave a message at the Jo Daviess County Board office.
COURTESY PHOTO The Scoop Today
Science in the IfPark you’re not at your last If you’re not401(k)? at your la job, why is your job, why is your 401(k Alex Jordan, Nathaniel Heidenreich, Rowan Blair and River Brenner embark on a scientific adventure during Stockton’s Science in the Park week.
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