Volunteers cleaned tombstones at privately-owned Vera Cruz cemetery
By BARBARA BARBIERI
A group of volunteers tackled the job of cleaning and resetting toppled tombstones Sunday at the Vera Cruz Cemetery on 800E, near Vera Cruz.
In charge of the project was Charles Joray, the great-great-grandson of Emmanuel Joray who had originally donated part of his farm (about 3 acres) to what became the St. John’s United Church of Christ in Vera Cruz for the cemetery in the 1850s.
Now, Joray is the owner of the cemetery that many of his family is buried in, as the church no longer exists and was unable to care for the site. Joray learned that if he promised to oversee the cemetery’s care he could purchase the site for $1 from the state of Indiana, and so he did.
Members of the Joray family have cared for the cemetery over the years and Joray remembers mowing it as a young man. After Emmanuel there was August, then another Emmanuel, and then William (Charles’s father). Now, to mow the site, Joray has hired Kyler Bagley of Bluffton.
For the Sunday work day Jory enlisted the help of his family, including wife Peggy; members of the Protectors of Past from the American Legion and VFW of Berne and Decatur (Garry Murdock commander); volunteers from Aqua Blast, and employees from TTC Verizon as part of their Culture of Good volunteering program (paying their workers to do what otherwise would be volunteer work). Several of the volunteers were from Indianapolis and all spent the day at the project.
The procedure for cleaning the tombstones was a process aided by a product called D-2 provided by Aqua-Blast. After spraying the stones the mold could be scraped off and was followed by a soap and water bath, then a rinse and then a final spray of D-2.
Some of the stones that were toppled were being placed on cement foundations by one crew, while others cut and sawed away unwanted growths beside the stones.
There have been some recent burials at the cemetery and Joray explains that he will sell others for $100 a plot.
Joray explained that the funds for the work on the cemetery is a shared project with his wife Peggy as they use her Social Security payments to fund both his cemetery project and one of hers.
Charles Joray was the Head Librarian at the Wells County Public Library before going to the Kokomo/Howard County library. Since his retirement he also has directed the Charles Joray Piano Competition in Indianapolis for the past five years. He and his wife Peggy are now residents of Indianapolis and can be reached by email at charles@joray.org
barb@news-banner.com
