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Thirty-five students and professionals from around the Hawaiian Islands and the Pacific Rim gathered June 1 at Kalaupapa National Historical Park to learn the art of cemetery preservation.
This 10-day, intense, hands-on field school, titled “Grave Marker Preservation and Lime Mortar Workshop,” was the brainchild of Richard Miller, a career mason, historic preservationist and exhibit specialist at Kalaupapa National Historical Park .
Miller, along with Carrie Mardorf, chief of cultural resources at Kalaupapa National Historical Park, and Jason Church, materials conservator for the National Center for Preservation Technology and Training, organized the workshop to include a mix of preservation lectures and fieldwork.
Church and James “Rusty” Brenner of the Texas Cemetery Restoration joined Miller in leading the workshop’s field sessions that ranged from invasive vegetation removal techniques to lime stuccoing of lava rock tombs.
Over the entire workshop, participants completed the preservation of nine tombs and cleaned or did small repairs to a dozen more.
The focus of the work, however, was not to try to complete preservation projects but to train and teach the importance of historic cemeteries to the local preservation students and professionals.
For example, professor Kerri Inglis brought a group of students from University of Hawaii at Hilo to the workshop. These students plan to develop a cemetery care and documentation program on their home island of Hawaii.