A brush with history: Restoring stones, reviving stories
By Megan Jantos·Community·Friday, June 26, 2026
The Laurel Hill Cemetery Board hosted its second annual gravestone repair and restoration workshop June 20 at Laurel Hill Cemetery.
Kurt Jordan, also known as the Kansas City Cemetery Man, demonstrated safe and approved gravestone-cleaning techniques for about a dozen participants before volunteers spread across the cemetery to put those lessons into practice.
The connection between preservation, property and family history became visible as volunteer Peg Strickland cleaned a marker belonging to the Manley family. Strickland now owns a home on property that was once part of a Manley homestead, linking the family’s place in Weston’s past to the people caring for its history today.
Bill Manley watched as Strickland and other participants worked on the gravestones of his great-great-uncle, Robert Lee Manley, and his aunt, Alice Manley. Volunteers also uncovered the inscription on a smaller marker belonging to a 1-year-old child.
Manley said he had not known the child’s marker was there because the writing had become too difficult to read.
His family settled near Dye Store in 1836, one year before Weston was founded. Robert Lee Manley later owned what Manley described as the family’s last Weston-area homestead.
Seeing Strickland care for a Manley gravestone added another layer to the restoration work. The property once connected to Manley’s ancestors remains part of Strickland’s life, while she helped preserve the physical record of the family who lived there generations earlier.
Manley attended the workshop in part because he hopes to clean markers at another Manley family cemetery near Dye Store Road. He said fallen trees have damaged some of the stones there, and he wants to document the names and dates that remain.
The Laurel Hill Cemetery Board conducts two major cleanups each year, while mowing accounts for most of its routine maintenance, board member Eric Mosier said. Volunteers also respond when storms leave fallen limbs and other debris throughout the cemetery.
The board has assembled a gravestone-cleaning kit based on Jordan’s recommendations so volunteers who have learned the approved process can continue the work.
Board secretary Sandy Taylor also invited residents to become involved with the cemetery’s oversight following the recent death of longtime board member and supporter Floyd Liberty. The board is expected to have seven trustees under its governing guidelines.
Workshop participant Jerry Gross volunteered to serve after Taylor issued the invitation.
For Jordan, however, the purpose of the work extends beyond maintaining the appearance of the cemetery.
Cleaning a stone can restore a name, reveal an inscription and provide another piece of the story of the people who settled and built Weston.
“It preserves the stone,” Jordan said. “But it also helps us remember and honor these individuals.”
