Graveyard lessons

During a hot and humid afternoon this week, Southeast Missouri State University student Laura Heldermon was in Ste. Genevieve's Memorial Cemetery, busily cleaning an ancient headstone that has fallen from its base.

She would take her paint brush, dip it into a red, plastic cup containing the lichen-killing D/2 Architectural Antimicrobial and then apply it, using steady, gentle brush strokes. Instantaneously, the headstone would lighten and a somewhat sudsy, brownish residue was left behind to be rinsed with water later on.

Heldermon, an anthropology major, cleaned for about 15 minutes before being called away to learn the proper methods of patching gravestones.

While unorthodox for most educational purposes, these graveyard lessons fit in perfectly with the university's Historic Preservation Field School that started June 15 and ends Thursday.

Field school director Dr. Bonnie Stepenoff is pleased with her 16 students this summer.

"We don't have any slackers in this group," Stepenoff said as she headed toward a group of four students working together to clean a large gravestone.

Stepenoff created the field school eight years ago as a way to provide students with hands-on experience in historical preservation work that they would never be able to get by staying in the classroom.

"We try to cover the major principles of preservation," Stepenoff said. The school also tries to show how preservation and archeology work together.

Prior to cleaning headstones, the students were performing paint analysis and doing excavating.

This year marks the first time Stepenoff's students have done any work associated with the Memorial Cemetery, which has graves that date to 1788.

Two centuries of wear and tear have left their mark on the cemetery, and the Foundation for the Restoration of St. Genevieve is in the initial phases of the cemetery restoration project, for which they have received a $300,000 matching federal grant from Save America's Treasures, a federal agency that promotes historical restoration.

The project provided a perfect opportunity for the field school students to learn more about historical restoration.

In addition to learning how to properly clean -- as well as patch -- stonework in cemeteries, the students have researched death records and old newspaper records to find out more about who is buried in the cemetery.

When the cemetery closed in the 1880s, the explanation was overcrowding. Yet the cemetery hardly looks overcrowded today, which leaves some to think that many graves are unmarked, especially those of blacks and American Indians.

While there have been previous attempts to put together lists of people buried in the cemetery, it is not known how accurate the lists are.

With only four weeks to spend in Ste. Genevieve, the students only skim the surface of the cemetery restoration program, but Stepenoff said it may be something that next year's students will continue to work on.

The historic graveyard is just a small example of what makes Ste. Genevieve such a great place to hold a historic preservation school.

"There is no other place like it in the world," Stepenoff said.

That is because Ste. Genevieve has more surviving French Creole buildings than anyplace in North America.

The oldest of those buildings, the Green Tree Tavern, has recently been renovated and is where students Adam Cashler and David Kreidler have been living during the field school.

Built in 1790 by the Janis family, it originally served as a tavern, trading post and home. According to present owner Hilliard Goldman, it also has the distinction of serving as Missouri's first Masonic lodge in 1807.

"Ever since we started the field school it's been under restoration," Stepenoff said of the tavern. "Now it's to the point where people can stay in it and experience what it's like to live in an 18th century French vertical-log house."

For Cashler and Kreidler, the experience has been better than they expected.

When Kreidler, who attends Truman State University in Kirksville, Mo., found out he would be staying at the Tavern, he worried about a lack of modern conveniences. After talking to Goldman, Kreidler found out that part of the house did have electricity, plumbing and a modern kitchen.

In fact, the only real inconvenience the two have experienced is having no shower, which means they have to ask to use the showers where other students are staying. There is also no cable TV, but books and a computer have managed to take its place.

Then there is the thrill of living in a residence that was standing when George Washington was president.

"It's kind of exciting," Kreidler said. "This house has seen everything."

kalfisi@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 182