Derecho Damage Defeated

The 2020 storm, a derecho with winds at 140 MPH, affected many things in Iowa, causing serious damage in Cedar Rapids and then racing down the US Highway 30 corridor to hit Clarence and the region around that town. One unexpected impact was damage to several gravestones in the Dayton Valley Cemetery, where many of our Decker and Frink relatives are interred.

The oldest of the Decker monuments is the one shown below with its obelisk blown to the ground by the storm. This portion of the monument, estimated to weigh one ton all by itself, managed to land on the ground without its lower portion hitting the base of the monument or its top hitting other grave markers very nearby. Either of those events would surely have chipped or broken the obelisk itself or the stones hit in its fall.

The challenge now was to find someone who could restore the monument, including both putting the obelisk back atop the base and reinforcing its connection there. My son Rob put me in touch with an outstanding stonemason, JB Barnhouse of the Country Stonemasons company near Iowa City, and after inspecting the situation JB agreed that he could do the work. This posting is an account of the restoration, which took place yesterday (June 9th) while a small audience of interested family members watched, mostly in awe of the process and the steps involved.

Two of JB's assistants began by working to find the exact centers of each of the base and the obelisk. Eventually, a steel rod and epoxy would be involved in helping to reinforce the connection of the obelisk to the base.

They made a template to insure that both parts ended up with holes where needed. This was crucial, of course, because the obelisk needed to be lowered onto the rod that would first be epoxied into the base of the monument.

Next, holes were drilled and the stainless steel rod was put into place.

Now it was time to move the obelisk so that it could be drilled and stood up. Once standing, a method could be devised to secure it in a stable fashion for lifting atop the base in its vertical position. We were really fortunate to have Mark Hunwardsen in the family. His construction company uses a telehandler (telescoping handler) to lift materials into place for roofing and other jobs. Mark made the telehandler available for this job, which was critical to doing the work correctly. The videos below show bits of the process--moving the obelisk, standing it up, and finally lifting it into place. (I apologize for the fact that I was so in awe of that last step, that I stopped taking the video too early. You will have to imagine the final lift and telescoping to position the obelisk at exactly the right spot for lowering onto the base and precisely onto that pin.)

The positioning was perfect and very impressive to watch. They lowered the obelisk so that it engaged the pin, and then they held it there while they applied epoxy to the base. They then lowered the stone the remainder of the way.

A pry bar was used to tip the obelisk ever so slightly so that the straps on its underside could be pulled free.

Here you can see the audience who watched the entire project patiently. There was a feeling of much happiness about the fact that this important marker was standing properly once again and maybe also some pride in having helped to make it happen. This stone marks the resting spot of Henry Decker and Mary Elizabeth Frink, who moved to Iowa from New York in the middle 1800s and homesteaded the farm just to the east of the cemetery. The cemetery ground itself was donated from that farm land.

Below is the crew with JB on the left and assistants Ethan Boileau and Aaron Knight.

After lunch, JB agreed to repair one additional monument that had less significant damage. This marker is for the parents of Mary Elizabeth Frink (see above). They were Perez Frink and Lydia Williams. This stone had already been leaning significantly just from years of movement in the ground. The storm had been aided by this in blowing the decorative piece off the top, and it broke into two parts at the narrow neck you can see. JB and his crew restored that piece with a pin and epoxy. Then they used a hydraulic jack to force the monument into a correct vertical position so that the piece could be safely replaced on top. I was impressed all day long with the crew's command of basic principles of physics to know how to leverage, move, and position these very heavy pieces of stone properly.