Savannah cemeteries draw national gravestone conference

SAVANNAH - Janet Taylor wipes the sweat from her eyes and jots down the inscription from another of the concrete and sandstone grave markers that resemble a row of 24 crooked teeth. <br> <br> The gravestones from the 1800s have been cracked by time and pushed into odd angles by large oak roots growing underneath. In this section of Laurel Grove South Cemetery, most of the burials were of slaves. <br> <br> Taylor admits many of her friends wouldn&#39;t be caught dead here on a muggy 90-degree day, with gnats swarming at their faces and ants biting their fingers in the dirt. <br> <br> ``People aren&#39;t cemetery-oriented anymore,&#39;&#39; says Taylor, who designs grave monuments in Pittsfield, Mass. ``You go out somewhere for dinner and people start being funny - `Oh yes, people are dying to come to you.&#39; People don&#39;t understand.&#39;&#39; <br> <br> Taylor is one of 140 members of the Association for Gravestone Studies who spent last weekend digging deep into the mystique of Savannah&#39;s historic cemeteries. <br> <br> From the crumbling headstones of slaves at Laurel Grove to the towering obelisks and ornate Victorian statuary of Bonaventure Cemetery, the group of historians, designers, cemetery directors and genealogy junkies indulged their passion for preserving history carved in stone. <br> <br> ``The great thing about cemeteries is they put art together with community planning or genealogy with restoration work,&#39;&#39; said Richard Laub, director of the historic preservation program at Georgia State University in Atlanta. ``This organization gets beyond the idea that cemeteries are a depository for the dead.&#39;&#39; <br> <br> Aside from air conditioned sessions on cemetery landscaping and Confederate burial customs, the gravestone enthusiasts spent many sweaty hours in the field. <br> <br> They studied ways to transfer inscriptions and designs to paper using wax and techniques for cleaning gravestones without damaging them and how to dig up and straighten markers that have fallen or tilted over time. <br> <br> ``I feel responsible, because I&#39;m alive at this time, to help any gravestone that needs it,&#39;&#39; said David Via, a monument conservator who works in Savannah. ``I&#39;d like to think somewhere there&#39;s somebody caring for ancestors I didn&#39;t know I had.&#39;&#39; <br> <br> Others pursue their own peculiar passions. <br> <br> Frederick Meli, an archaeologist from East Greenwich, R.I., looks for images of the grim reaper and other symbols of the apocalypse often found in the 18th century. Taylor jots notes of unusual monument shapes or carvings that she might incorporate into her own memorial designs. <br> <br> Member of the association, which has 11,000 members nationwide, say a number of new books on cemeteries, the vogue revival of Victorian statuary and the online explosion of genealogy show fewer Americans consider cemeteries to be simply morbid or mundane. <br> <br> ``Reader as you are now, so once was I/ As I am now, so you must be/ Prepare for death and follow me,&#39;&#39; Taylor recites from an inscription she finds in Laurel Grove. The gravestone is marked 1828. <br> <br> She&#39;s seen the same words several times before on markers in Boston and other northern cities. <br> <br> ``I&#39;ve no idea where it came from originally,&#39;&#39; Taylor says. ``Really, a cemetery is a very interesting mystery.&#39;&#39;

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