The Association for Gravestone Studies

We are seeking candidates for the 2012
Harriette Merrifield Forbes Award and the Oakley Certificate Of Merit

The Forbes Award is the highest honor bestowed by the Association for Gravestone Studies and goes to an individual who has significantly furthered gravestone studies in keeping with our mission statement. The award is named for Harriette Merrifield Forbes of Worcester, Massachusetts, who photographed gravestones and studied their carvers in the early 1900s. In 1927 she published a book titled Gravestones of Early New England and the Men Who Made Them.

The presentation of the award is usually made at the Awards Banquet during the Annual Conference. A reception precedes the banquet at which the recipient is the guest of honor. The President makes a presentation speech indicating why the person or organization was chosen and giving a summary of the work accomplished. A framed certificate is presented along with a photograph of Harriette Merrifield Forbes. The recipient usually gives an acceptance speech.

The work honored can be in any area or combination of areas, such as gravestone carver attribution, gravestone conservation, gravestone art, gravestone geology, exhibitions relating to gravestones, and computer programming for gravestone study; also the historical, archaeological, genealogical, or religious significance of gravestones. Other acceptable subject areas are the iconography, poetry, language, and lettering on gravestones. The work may be in many forms, such as research, writing, videotaping, photography, interpretive editing, organizational leadership, legislation, financial assistance, and teaching.

The Oakley Certificate of Merit is presented periodically by the AGS Board of Trustees to individuals and groups that have helped to advance the mission of the Association. Named for long-time members Rosalee and Fred Oakley, the Certificate of Merit is designed to honor those whose work in the field of gravestone studies that is worthy of recognition by AGS.

The award consists of a certificate, presented by the Board of Trustees, as well as, a gift of a book to the honoree's local library, in their name on behalf of AGS. Whenever possible the award presentation will be made by a local AGS member. Each year's recipients will have their names printed in the conference program book and annual report. In addition, they will be acknowledged at a reception held in their honor at the conference.

Please send your nominations, including the name, address, telephone, and e-mail address of the nominee and of the person or group doing the nominating. Describe the reasons for making the nomination, how the work reflects the AGS mission statement, and how the work has benefited the wider community. Include any clippings or photographs. If possible, have the local Historical Society or Preservation Commission comment upon the significance of the achievement.

Please send nominations to:
AGS Awards Committee, Anne Tait
c/o AGS Office
Greenfield Corporate Center
101 Munson Street - Suite 108
Greenfield, MA 01301
info@gravestonestudies.org

The Harriette Merrifield Forbes Award - 2011
was awarded at the AGS 2011 conference and annual meeting in
Waterville, Maine
to
William Fred Oakley, Jr.
who made an
Outstanding Contribution
to the Field of Gravestone Studies

Many years ago when AGS was a fledgling organization in 1987, Fred Oakley coordinated the first AGS Conservation Workshop and demonstrated techniques for cleaning and repairing, resetting and photographing gravestones. Fred pioneered methods of forming new bases, and fostered new ways of thinking about remedies for overgrown cemetery plantings that would cause the least harm to the landscape and to grave markers.

Over the years since that conference, there has always been a conservation workshop, with opportunities for participants to have hands-on experience in cleaning and resetting stones. In Fred's workshops, the participants "learn by doing." He found the best learning environment involved a design using a number of group leaders with four participants in each group. This design insured participant safety, experience with appropriate methods and gentle care of the stones.

He trained hundreds of protegees in the community as well as at AGS conferences and wrote articles about stone conservation in the AGS Quarterly and for the website. At a time when no training manuals existed, Fred took photographs of the steps involved in forming bases and in repairing stones, and produced preservation guides. At the same time he worked and consulted with persons of conservation experience. Subsequently, he increased the type of tools, techniques and materials he used for repairing gravestones.

In 1997, Fred was honored by AGS when the AGS Certificate of Merit was named after him and his wife, Rosalee. They each received the first certificates to be awarded and since then, forty individuals and ten organizations have been recognized for their work to advance the mission of AGS to foster appreciation of the cultural significance of gravestones and burying grounds through their study and preservation.

While Fred's active participation has waned in recent years, he continues to participate through funding various AGS endeavors. Most recently he has provided money to fund the student conference scholarship in 2010 and 2011.

But it is for his ground-breaking conservation methodology, for the extensive reach of his teaching, and for the significance of his work to the field of gravestone conservation, Fred Oakley is most deserving of this Forbes Award.

Please join the AGS Board of Trustees in celebration of this
outstanding contribution to the field of gravestone studies.

The Oakley Certificate Of Merit (4) - 2011

An Oakley Award was awarded to
Colonel Edward D. Baker Camp #6
Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War
Lafayette, Oregon

Colonel Edward D. Baker Camp #6, Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War worked on a Graves Registration Project to identify the final resting places of all Civil War Veterans in Oregon. The Sons of Union Veterans Civil War Database is up to 5508 names in Oregon, and 99 of those are Confederate Veterans. The Baker Camp has placed 101 new headstones on graves in Oregon in 27 different cemeteries. Of that number 86 have been placed on previously unmarked graves, and 15 have replaced existing damaged or illegible markers. Members continue to look for other veteran's since they estimate that 10,000 Civil War veterans are buried in the state.

***and***

An Oakley Award was awarded to
Dr. Jennifer (Perky) Beisel and Dr. George Avery
Nacogdoches, Texas

Dr. Beisel is Assistant Professor and Graduate Advisor in the Department of History at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas and Dr. Avery is Cultural Heritage Resource Coordinator in the Anthropology & Archaeology Department at SFAU. Not only do they individually teach cemetery and grave stone-related courses and supervise public history internships focusing on cemeteries, together they initiate, plan, direct, and find funding for projects through the Center for Regional Heritage Research. During 2009 and 2010 the nominees used available university and community resources and obtained Preserve America and Humanities Texas grants to support a series of preservation and education projects.

***and***

An Oakley Award was awarded to
Phippsburg Old Cemetery Restoration
Sebasco Estates, Maine

The town of Phippsburg has over 100 cemeteries, only three of which are maintained by the town. A Phippsburg teacher received a grant from the ME Community Foundation to get students involved in learning about town history while doing some restoration work at a cemetery near their school. The rejuvenation campaign was taken over by several families and expanded into the group that later became known as Phippsburg Old Cemetery Restoration. The group works on restoring and maintaining Phippsburg�s old cemeteries, and continues to try and involve the students. As of 2010, forty cemeteries have been restored. They have conducted tours, provided maps for self-guided tours, along with a narrated slide presentation during meetings hosted by the Phippsburg Historical Society.

***and***

An Oakley Award was awarded to
Mark Cheetham and Donald Cheetham
Richmond and Brunswick, Maine

Mark and Donald Cheetham have worked as volunteers for over a decade and mapped 18,782 stones in thirty-five cemeteries in the Topsham and Brunswick area of Maine. They have mapped each stone's location, repaired sunken and lying on the ground stones, transcribed the name and family relationships and noted the military and fraternal information. Mark has self-published annually a series of books showing the results of their work. For each cemetery, the book includes directions, any known historical information related to the cemetery, maps to located the stones (numbering each stone on a map), a record of the individual stone's inscription � including epitaph, and at the end an index by family surname giving the location of each stone within the cemetery.

Please join the AGS Board of Trustees in celebration of these outstanding
contributions to the field of gravestone studies.

Harriette Merrifield Forbes Recipients

1977 Daniel Farber
1978 Ernest Caufield
1979 Peter Benes
1980 None Given
1981 Allan Ludwig
1982 Jim Slater
1983 Hilda Fife
1984 Ann Parker & Avon Neal
1985 Jessie Lie Farber
1986 Louise Tallman
1987 Pamela & Frederick Burgess
1988 Laurel Gabel
1989 Betty Willsher
1990 Theodore Chase
1991 Lynette Strangstad
1992 Ralph Tucker
1993 Deborah Trask
1994 Barbara Rotundo
1995 Dillon R. Dorrell, Sr.
1996 Historic Burial Ground Initiative, Boston, Mass.
1997 Vincent F. Luti
1998 Rosalee F. Oakley, Richard E. Meyer
1999 No award given
2000 James Deetz, Warren Roberts (posthumously), Edwin Dethlefsen (posthumously)
2001 Mary-Ellen Jones, M. Ruth Little
2002 John Sterling
2003 James Blachowicz
2004 Helen Sclair
2005 Terry Jordan (posthumously)
2006 The National Center for Preservation Technology and Training
2007 Gray Williams
2008 Roberta Halporn and Gary Collison (posthumously)
2009 David H. Watters
2010 Tom Malloy and Brenda Malloy
2011 William Fred Oakley, Jr.

The Oakley Certificate of Merit

1997 Fred & Rosalee Oakley
1998 Fred Fredette, Friends of Center Cemetery
1999 Harriet Ryan & Phyllis Lohrum, Friends of Mount Hope Cemetery
2000 John O'Brien, Mary Reilly-McNellan, James A. Smith, Henry "Red" Sutowski,
Arthur and Frances Hyde, Charles Marchant
2001 Nate Crepeault, Alicia Paresi
2002 Juliana Fuchs, Penny Lambeth, Bonaventure Historical Society
2003 Melissa Fleming, Rebecca Gorman, Betty Myers
2004 Emma Dragon, Adopt-A-Plot (Hampden, Mass.), Robert Carlson, Craig Dolder,
Norman Saul
2005 None given
2006 Historic Richmond Foundation, Fred Burdick, Kimberly Kenney, Brandon Kenyon, Jennifer Cerasuolo, Bob Posson, Olde Historical Burial Ground Joint Committee of the First Presbyterian Church
2007 Gaynell Stone, Ph.D., Linda K. Lewis
2008 Minxie and Jim Fannin, Jeffrey Kuschka
2009 MoBarry, Molly DePue, Georgia Municipal Cemetery Association
2010 Dr. Indira Gesink, Eagle Scout Michael Martinez, Old Colony Burying Ground Volunteers
2011 Colonel Edward D. Baker Camp #6 Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War, Dr. Jennifer (Perkey) Beisel & Dr. George Avery, Phippsburg Old Cemetery Restoration, Mark & Donald Cheetham

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