Millican Family Headstones Restoration project:
(Last updated Jan. 2, 2005)
1994
| 1994 cemetery visits. | |||
March 11, 1994. |
 May 17, 1994 |
 May 17, 1994 [Pic 2] |
 May 17, 1994 |
| The children's headstones were found placed around a nearby
tree. Prudence Millican's headstone was destroyed by mowers, vandals, and/or
cows. I gathered the visible pieces and placed them next to the tree.
The bottom half of Rosa Lee's headstone was still in it it's base. No head stone (or pieces) for Mary R. Millican (Nov. 22, 1875 - Oct. 23, 1878) was found. It may be completely buried near by. The headstone still existed at the time of an April 1971 survey. The headstones are evidently composed of soft white marble, not sure. Many of them are brittle and some parts have become like sandstone over the years. Mold and fungus have penetrated into the stones staining them various shades of gray, green, and brown. They would have been bright white when new. |
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2000
| March 11, 2000 cemetery visit. | |||
 Nora Millican |
 Araminta Millican |
 Rosa Lee Millican |
 Anna B. Millican |
2003-2004
| When I revisited the cemetery on March 29, 2003 during a cemetery
association meeting I discovered the headstones has been haphazardly
cemented into the wrong bases. The much larger base that held Prudence
Millican's headstone was now holding one of her children's headstones
with cement filling in the extra slot space (eeek!). At this point I decided to try and restore what had been before. I decided that it was time to give back Prudence Millican her headstone as best as I could. Prudence was my great great grandmother's sister and I was the physically closest living relative and probably the only person that knew the "unmarked" grave belonged to her. The footstone with her initials P. M. still existed but had been totally buried. Late April-early May 2003 I went back to the cemetery with tools and removed the stones from their wrong positions and chipped out the cement. I began searching for the rest of Prudence's destroyed headstone by deep raking a large area around the graves in two visits. I uncovered many buried pieces and began peicing together what I could over the next year at home. I also took all the children's headstones and footstones with me to clean and repair them at home. I also found the top half of the large footstone for George Carrol and rejoined that with the buried bottom half, cleaned and patched. May 25?, 2003 visited the cemetery, deep raked for more peices and cleaned more. May 22, 2004 took a clay impression of a hand-holding design on an undamaged stones to use in the restoration. |
2004, recreating the destroyed headstone of Prudence Millican:
| In progress new headstone for Prudence Millican July 2004. | ||||
 Partially complete with cast July 6, 2004 |
 Closeup of top of stone July 6, 2004 |
 Closeup of design July 6, 2004 |
 Unusable pieces July 24, 2004 |
 Finished headstone July 24, 2004 |
| Prudence's new headstone incorporates pieces from the original such
as the near complete bottom left corner and pieces showing part of the name,
dates and epitaph. The hand-holding design was part of the original
stone and was replaced by using a clay cast taken from another undamaged
headstone. The broken pieces shown above could not be used in the new headstone because they could
not be matched to any other pieces. The near complete corner can be seen
on the finished stone, bottom left. The recast and repairs were made with fine unsanded tile grout which has the same consistency of the soft marble. The tile grout was soft enough to carve the lettering with a razor knife but gets harder when exposed to water. With Prudence's headstone I tried to match exactly the block lettering of the name and dates, and the script style of the epitaph. The children's headstones required cleaning and some patching. The right portion of Anna B Millican's stone was repaired, completeing the dates. Nora and Rosa Lee's broken headstones were pinned and glued back together with epoxy. |
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Aug. 2004
| Aug. 1, 2004 the cleaned and repaired stones were returned | ||||
 Nora Millican |
 Araminta Millican |
 Rosa Lee Millican |
 Anna B Millican |
 Prudence Millican |
 Looking East. |
Looking West. |
 Anna B & Prudence Millican |
 Prudence Millican |
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| Anna B. Millican's grave still retained the small foot stone with her
initials A.B.M. and so I was able to place her headstone back in the proper
base. The other stones were placed back in the base they seemed to fit
correctly in. The base with the missing headstone must be for
Mary Millican. L-R are: Nora, Araminta, Rosa Lee, Mary R. (missing), Anna B, and Prudence Millican. Pictures of every headstone in the cemetery were taken and posted to the Stiff Chapel cemetery page. |
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