Spectres in Stone II

Haunted by the Past.

Headstone renovation can be both a joy and a grief, especially when you find evidence of a questionable previous repair and re-installation. In this particular case, The Ghost of Arana Gulch's headstone, an old beer bottle embedded in decayed cement to the side of its granite base, crumbled away to reveal evidence of a very '70s style installer with a sense of historic humor.

Top Men

Which '70s? 1970s, or the 1870s?

Simple! Answer: A plastic screw top cap with a very particular inscription on the side of the bottle narrowed the installation date down to 1974. Our 'beer' bottle was a whiskey bottle manufactured in between the 1960s-1970s. Our masonry expert thought the concrete might be a "quick mix" or "fence post" style concrete, hence its short 'shelf life' and evidence of epoxy slathered around the real base "slam dunked" our opinion.So why the concern? The 1970s at Evergreen was an active time of renovation complete with boxes of record keeping. Why was there no record of this particular set of stones having such a repair? Our team also noticed that the center missing piece (we never found it) may have "popped out", the result of a blunt force trauma to the back of the monument OR a very strong earthquake. A sledgehammer vandal(such a thing did happen at Evergreen in the 1960s) theory was dismissed, because the back of the damaged stone was smooth. We settled on an earthquake. The record of the past showed us evidence of several strong quakes (see previous blog post Shaken, not Stirred for more information).

A Fractured Past

Why is there a hole in the front of this marker? A.J. Sloan's stone quality was  different from his mother's headstone. An inferior style of marble, riddled with fine cracks caused the stone to fracture in this manner, leaving, as you see in the photo, a large hole in its face.

A number of opinions were discussed as we raised the monuments back up in their place, such as where were the records recounting this modern "restoration"? The whiskey bottle placed deliberately at AJ's base suggested an historical understanding, as a famous rumor claimed AJ flew into a drunken rage, was unarmed, and set upon. (All these claims had no proof, but made a great story at the time. See author's notes on this blog for more information.)
The lack of records was easy to explain. Like today, this was a volunteer effort. Someone donated their time and materials. The entire day could have been a workday for the entire cemetery. It was probably logged as such. We just needed to cull through those records again. One of our team joked that in forty years (the same amount of time from the 1970s to today) renovation volunteers will curse us as well.

Broken Up

In the end, when all was restored, the answer was quite clear how these stones broke apart. I am one inch over five feet tall. As you can see by the photo, I am standing six inches lower than the top of the headstone. This restoration took four 1/2 inch thick galvanized steel  rods, approximately 8 inches long slathered in modern epoxy to ensure its upright stability. In the 1860s, this stone was simply set in a base with barely a 12 inch long  2 inch wide, possibly 6 inch  deep "tab", none of which was adequate to hold such a heavy stone against the powerful sway of an earthquake.

The Standing Stones of Clan Sloan

One can only wonder at the love and care that went into the carving and mounting of these original stones. AJ's father was a native of Scotland. Did their surviving kin honor their Scottish past, pay a regular visits to Evergreen, until they were no more? How should the story of AJ Sloan, The Ghost of Arana Gulch be memorialized today? (To see a video of the actual setting of this particular stone and a 3D model of this monument, visit our facebook page )