It's not work for sissies, and there were none to be
found Friday.
Lifting, leveling and
resetting massive tombstones in historical cemeteries is
grimy, backbreaking and mostly thankless work.
Eight brawny bodies strained and sweated to lift a
single granite slab sunk deep in the muddy ground in
Sachse's Pleasant Valley Cemetery. Hundreds of leaning
headstones remained in the more-than-a-century-old
graveyard, and none of the workers would be paid for
their efforts.
You
could call them do-gooders. Or you could just call them
juvenile parolees.
"Nobody wants to work with these guys," said Dan
Fauver, a parole officer with the Texas Youth Commission
and founder and president of North Texas Cemetery
Preservation.
Every worker in Friday's bunch has done time. They
have committed some of the most violent crimes or are
habitual criminals.
"It's hard getting agencies to take them," said Mr.
Fauver, who created the nonprofit cemetery association
to provide a way for some of his parolees to complete
required community service hours while helping neglected
and historic cemeteries.
Almost without exception, parolees who work with Mr.
Fauver in the program ask to be assigned there again.
Some even come back as volunteers once their service
requirement is complete.
"It feels good, because I did something for the
community and myself as well," said Robert Woodworth,
18. He completed his service hours months ago but
returns regularly to work with Mr. Fauver.
"It's fun, and it gives me something to do," Mr.
Woodworth said.
"Before I came here, I just wanted to get my
community service done and over with," he said. "Now, if
he calls me back, I'll be here. ... I think this could
be a lifelong hobby for me."
Once he's released from parole, Mr. Woodworth wants
to join the Navy and start life fresh, doing volunteer
work in whatever community he winds up settling in.
Every Wednesday and Friday, Mr. Fauver's days off
from the youth commission, he and a crew of young
convicts head to one of the project cemeteries. On those
days, Mr. Fauver is a volunteer, working alongside his
wards without pay. His is the only program of its kind
in Texas, although other areas are looking to duplicate
it.
Before work began Friday, Mr. Fauver took time to
honor Jim Foster, president of the Dallas County Pioneer
Association, and other volunteers who helped create and
have supported the program.
"It's really a project that I came up with," Mr.
Foster said. "I got them started at Cottonwood Cemetery
[in unincorporated Dallas County]. Before, you really
couldn't get them to show up at a [non-cemetery] project
they were assigned to."
In the three years since, the cemetery program has
blossomed, and hundreds of tombstones across Dallas and
Denton counties have been righted with parolee labor.
Leveling each one requires tipping the decorative
marker off its base, digging the slab out of the earth –
sometimes the base has sunk several feet into the ground
– filling the space below with concrete mix and
resetting the base level.
The headstone then must be hoisted back into place
and fastened with liquid cement. Depending on size, each
tombstone component can weigh from several hundred
pounds to more than a thousand.
Mr. Fauver uses the process to philosophize.
"If the base is level, just like in the rest of your
life, if you've got the basics down, then the rest of
it's going to be level, too," he tells the parolees.
"When we're doing this, there's a lot of trust and a lot
of teamwork."
On Friday, the group tackled the heaviest and most
difficult stones. They used 8-foot timbers and 6-foot
steel rods to help pry the base stones out of the
ground. As the workers chewed up the dirt with their
tools, one parolee bent to remove clumps of mud that had
landed on a small adjacent marker labeled, simply,
"Baby." He wiped the granite stone clean with his
fingers.
Some stubborn slabs took more than an hour to free
from the rumpled earth. Success was celebrated with a
round of high-fives and knuckle slamming. Faces glowed
with pride.
Mr. Fauver said the youths have a right to be
pleased.
"These stones are the only evidence that some of
these people were here," he said. "Y'all are preserving
the past, but we're also investing in the future.
"It's all tied together."
When the parolees aren't leveling headstones, they
spend hours mowing and reclaiming neglected cemeteries.
Weeds and brush yield to donated push mowers that first
had to be repaired. Mr. Fauver is hoping for donations
to pay for a sturdier brush mower.
"There are grants for libraries and grants for
schools and grants for just about everything, but there
are no grants for cemeteries," he complained.
"We'd like for these guys to get the tools they need
to do this. Guys like Robert don't have to be here, but
they're here because this is important."
E-mail ksanderson@dallasnews.com
