NRWHS Sophomore's "Gone Graving" Project Preserves Local History

 

For one North Rose-Wolcott High School sophomore, a passion for restoring local cemeteries is growing into a large-scale effort to preserve local history.

Parker Maybe started Gone Graving, a headstone cleaning service and YouTube channel, in the fall of 2023. He has cleaned up over 800 headstones in local cemeteries so far, filming the cleaning process and researching the people buried there to uncover the stories of their lives. 

Parker’s videos have earned him a growing social media following, with over 3,000 subscribers on YouTube. He has also received recognition from New York State Assemblyman Brian Manktelow, who honored Parker with a citation in October for his efforts to go above and beyond in preserving local history.

Gone Graving is a natural progression of Parker’s longtime interests in cemeteries and local history. He vividly remembers attending his first cemetery cleanup at the Ellinwood Cemetery with his mother, the former Rose town historian, when he was nine years old. A discovery that day sparked a fire in him.

“We were cleaning up some trees in the cemetery and I saw a little piece of stone sticking up from the dirt,” Parker said. He and two other boys started digging and, after some cleanup, found the headstone of James and Eleanor Campbell. “From that moment on, I knew I wanted to clean and repair headstones so no one would be forgotten like the Campbells were,” he said.

Parker picked up some knowledge from YouTube videos as well as Dave MacDougall, who was the caretaker of the Huron Evergreen Cemetery for 46 years and an assistant scoutmaster with his Boy Scout troop. In the summer and fall of 2023, he began to take his budding interest more seriously, inspired by a trip to the Hubbard Cemetery in Butler. At the time, the cemetery was covered in poison ivy and virginia creeper, the stones poking out of the overgrowth.

“I decided I wanted to restore the Hubbard Cemetery because it felt like it spoke to me,” he said. “It felt familiar like I had been here before, like in a past life or something.”

Parker started the Gone Graving YouTube channel that September, received headstone cleaning materials as a Christmas gift, and requested permission from the Butler Town Board to clean up the cemetery in January. After the winter snow melted, he started work on the cemetery in March with the help of a friend. They spent hours after school removing the overgrown plants. “We found about 30 headstones that you couldn’t see because of all of the poison ivy and virginia creeper on top of them,” he said.

Parker currently has permission to restore 10 cemeteries in the towns of Rose and Butler. He has received help from friends, family members, and local cemetery preservationists including Dave Bloom, who helped him repair his first stone. So far, Parker has fixed and straightened eight stones in addition to the ones he has cleaned.

Parker spends most of his free time researching and making lists of information by cemetery so that local historians and family members can easily access the life stories of those buried there. Through his research, he’s uncovered the stories of local veterans and prominent figures in the towns’ early histories. His favorite story so far is that of Capt. William Wood (1830-1903), a Butler native who graduated from Albany Law School and practiced law for five years in Red Creek before joining the Army and fighting in the American Civil War. He was wounded in the battle of Sailors’ Run when a bullet entered under his left eye and lodged near his ear, where it would stay until his death. After mustering out in 1865, Wood turned to farming, married and had five children. He served as a Butler town supervisor, was frequently called upon to settle estates, was elected a member of the Assembly, and spent time surveying at the Surrogate’s court after handing the farm down to his eldest son in 1895. Gone Graving preserves these stories for future generations and highlights the accomplishments of those who settled here in the past.

Parker plans to use his knowledge to get others interested in preserving local history. He wants to hold workshops to teach others - particularly younger people - the basics of headstone cleaning and repair. Eventually, he’d like to start a nonprofit organization that works with schools and community groups.

“That would be a great way to get the community together to remember and get these forgotten cemeteries back into good shape, just like how I got started,” he said.

Follow Gone Graving on YouTube at https://youtube.com/@gonegraving and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/GoneGraving.