Earth Day : Cleanup at New Mount Ida Cemetery, Troy, NY

 The City has sent out a press release to schedule annual Earth Day cleanups this year.

Our work in the New Mount Ida Cemetery will be Saturday, April 17th from 9-2pm. We will pile up brush, pick up trash and also bring back the chain hoist to fix or straighten monuments. Or any other projects that come up that volunteers wish to do. The city is giving away lawn and leaf bags. It also sounds like promotional items such as magnets and stickers will be available to hand out to volunteers as well. So we will have to try to get some when we pick up the bags.

New Mount Ida Cemetery Gravestone Cleaning & Restoration Project

Yesterday, I was notified by my friends, Alysia and Cameron, who are rehabbing the New Mount Ida Cemetery in Troy that they are securing Joe Ferrannini from Grave Stone Matters to rehab a number of gravestones in the cemetery from Friday 29 June through Sunday 01 July. All of the selected stones will need to be cleaned with D2 and prepped; then Joe will make the necessary repairs to the gravestones.

Alysia and Cameron are asking if anyone is interested in helping with this project. They adopted the cemetery a number of years ago and have made significant progress in bringing the cemetery back. For years it was neglected and forgotten. Today, the cemetery is well on its way to returning to its former glory.

If anyone is interested, the details are below.

Mt. Ida Cemetery
Pinewoods Avenue
Troy, New York

Friday, 29 June 2018
Saturday, 30 June 2018
Sunday, 01 July 2018

Work to begin around 8:30 - 9:00 AM each day

New Mount Ida Cemetery Project : GoFundMe Page

My friends in Troy, Alysia and Cameron have been working on restoring the New Mount Ida Cemetery, in Troy on Pinewoods Avenue for quiet a few years now. Numerous times they have held gravestone restoration seminars that were led by professional tombstone conservator Joe Ferrannini of Grave Stone Matters. To continue their work and offset costs, they have set up a GoFundMe page. Please check out their fundraising page here. Please contribute to their cause if you are able. It is a worthy cause!

New Mount Ida Cemetery,Troy, Looking for Volunteers

A friend, Alysia, passed this note on to me. The group that is restoring the New Mount Ida Cemetery on Pinewoods Avenue in Troy is looking for help/volunteers with gravestone restoration in July. Details are below:

We are looking for volunteers again for our annual stone repair workshop in the New Mount Ida Cemetery, on Pinewoods Avenue in Troy. It will be held Saturday, July 8th and Sunday, July 9th from 8am-5pm. Joe Ferrannini will be here again for our annual event, and we are looking for help with cleaning stones with soft brushes. Joe will be doing the actual repair work on the markers. Its always very rewarding and always a great time to hang out with other volunteers. Plus its so great to see the stones once they are all repaired. Please feel free to pass this along to anyone that you know of that may be interested!

New Mount Ida Cemetery Veterans' Monument Restoration

In September, a restoration project was undertaken at New Mount Ida cemetery in Troy. The focus of the project was to restore the grave sites of Civil War veterans who are buried in the cemetery. This venture was undertaken in the name and memory of Ed Dodge. Ed was a fellow cemetery enthusiast who passed away recently. Mr. Dodge was implemental in getting grave stone replacements for missing and damaged grave markers for veterans at the old Lansingburgh burial grounds. Ed researched, found, and photographed old abandoned Rensselaer county cemeteries. He posted his findings and photos on Find a Grave. Joe Ferrannini from Grave Stone Matters was secured and lent his expertise at preserving and conserving gravestones. 

Upwards of 24 stones were marked for restoration. Volunteers that helped in this venture included members of the Boy Scouts, members of the Sons of Union Civil War Veterans organization, and other interested parties. I brought two unwilling participants, my daughters, to help. It was thought that it would be a good lesson in sacrifice. The day was beautiful and why not have the girls give up some hours to help restore the grave sites of others who sacrificed so much more than a few hours. Grave stones of fallen Civil War soldiers not much older than my girls were found including one for a young man who died at the Battle of Gettysburg. I can only hope the girls learned a lesson about true sacrifice.

The three photos below were taken during the restoration. Notice the condition and how unlevel the stones are aside from also being broken.

The photo below is of another stone that was re-purposed for another reason. Perhaps something was incorrect with the stone or carving. Instead of discarding the stone, it was used as a base and placed under the stone and buried. Notice how clear the carving is. It almost looks brand new. The newly found stone was reburied under the tombstones after the ground was leveled.

Taken a few days later, the photo below of the semi-complete stone restoration. The stones were cleaned, re-leveled, and epoxied. The large stone needs re-mortaring where it was broken.

Cemetery Restoration Project at New Mount Ida Cemetery

Coming up this weekend is a cemetery restoration project at the New Mount Ida Cemetery on Pinewoods Avenue in Troy. The dates are Saturday and Sunday, September 19th and 20th beginning around 8 AM.

The focus of this project will be to restore the grave sites of Civil War veterans who are buried at New Mount Ida. This venture is being undertaken in the name and memory of Ed Dodge. Ed was a fellow cemetery enthusiast who passed away recently. Mr. Dodge was implemental in getting grave stone replacements for missing and damaged grave markers for veterans at the old Lansingburgh burial grounds.

Joe Ferrannini from Grave Stone Matters will be there lending his expertise at preserving and conserving gravestones. Please stop by to lend a hand at restoring the graves of our veterans.

Photos from the New Mount Ida Clean-Up

About two weeks ago I helped out on a tombstone cleaning and restoration project at the New Mount Ida Cemetery on Pinewoods Avenue in Troy. About a dozen people came out to help. One from the Troy Irish Genealogy Society, a few from the Sons of Union Civil War Veterans, Willard Camp #154, some RPI fraternity brothers chipped in, and a few of us who are interested in cemetery preservation.

We cleaned the stones and leveled their bases and then Joe Ferraninni from Grave Stone Matters worked his magic on patching the broken stones back together. The project was a two day affair. Saturday, when I was there was brutally hot and the sun unrelenting when you were not in the shade. I am told that the organizers were there until late Sunday afternoon finishing up. It was rewarding to everyone who helped because we knew that we were doing good. Although an enormous tree fell in the cemetery the night before during a quick moving summer thunderstorm, the cemetery is greatly improving due to the dedication of those who "adopted" the cemetery and are investing their time and efforts to restoring it back to a place of beauty.

Below are photos from the restoration project.

Gravestone Clean-up / Restoration Project at the New Mount Ida Cemetery

Earlier today I was notified that in a couple of weeks there will be a gravestone clean-up and restoration project at the New Mount Ida Cemetery on Saturday June 13th and Sunday June 14th. Joe Ferrannini from Grave Stone Matters will be there lending his expertise at preserving and conserving gravestones. The project will begin around 9 AM.

A very small group has "adopted" the New Mount Ida Cemetery located on Pinewoods Avenue. Through their efforts they are slowly transforming this once abandoned cemetery into a place of welcome. At one time the grass was continually un-mowed and waist high. Numerous fallen trees were all over. However that is not the case today.

The cemetery is on Pinewoods Avenue less than a mile from the intersection of Pinewoods and Pawling Avenues. The group is looking for as many volunteers as can be mustered up. A primer will be given how to clean lichens and environmental pollution from the stones and then we will go and "have at it." After the stones are cleaned, Ferrannini will address the stones that need further attention.

Please spread the word to anyone who may be interested in this kind of volunteer work. They can contact me on this blog and I can get further information from the organizers. Hope to see you there!

New Mount Ida Cemetery clean-up day

I am told that on Saturday 18 October 2014 there will be a clean-up day at the New Mount Ida Cemetery on Pinewoods Avenue in Troy from 9 am till 3 pm.  A small dedicated group is slowly transforming this cemetery gem from a neglected eyesore to a friendly walkable retreat.  Years ago the cemetery was a mess; with grass growing upwards of being waist high.  Today the cemetery is not overgrown anymore and volunteers are up righting and repairing fallen tombstones.  The volunteer group needs help clearing fallen tree branches and debris.  Come spend a few hours with a great bunch of people and help return the New Mount Ida cemetery to greatness.

New Mount Ida Cemetery

After picking up my daughters from sleepovers and treating them to lunch at Famous Lunch on Congress Street in Troy, we decided to head over to the New Mount Ida Cemetery on Pinewoods Avenue.  In reality the cemetery is not "New."  It is simply to differentiate two cemeteries with the same name.  The "Old" Mount Ida Cemetery is located not far from the "New" at the Poestenkill where Congress Street and Pawling Avenue intersect.

This was my first jaunt to this cemetery in almost twenty years.  The cemetery was in much better condition than I had remembered it.  I recall grass that stood knee high to over two feet high.  Through the work of a few dedicated volunteers, the cemetery is being brought back to a usable and friendly status.

We stopped at Mount Ida to snap some photos of an ancestor's grave site. My gggg grandmother, Geesje Raeloss Hoorn married Klaas Booij on 28 October 1828 in Nijeveen, Holland.  They immigrated to America in the early 1840s with their children and eventually resided in Albany.  Somewhere along their journey their name changed from Booij to Boyd.  An even more dramatic change was my gggg grandmother's name change from Geesje Raeloss to Lucretia; as can be seen on her stone.

Boyd gravestone

Lucretia Boyd

While we were at Mount Ida, we met some of the people who are volunteering their time to help bring back the cemetery.  They were leveling and resetting some stones.  We chatted for about twenty minutes and they mentioned that Joe Ferrannini from Grave Stone Matters will be giving a presentation on grave stone conservation at the cemetery on Saturday 28 June 2014 at 9 AM.

In October 2013 I wrote a small piece on Joe.  He was repairing stones in the Greenbush cemetery.  It will be worthwhile to check this out.  Joe is very knowledgeable and friendly.  I will be definitely be checking this out.