PINE RIVER — Tyler McAllister, formerly of Backus, has stepped in to assist with a problem almost all cemeteries face: maintenance.

McAllister, a 2017 Pine River-Backus High School graduate, works for Northern Bedrock Historic Preservation in Grand Portage, where he has learned how to properly care for monuments such as those found in a cemetery. During his down time in recent months he's been visiting Pine Ridge Cemetery in Pine River, cleaning stones and leveling them out.

His work began close to his heart by cleaning and resetting stones for friends and family.

"I enjoy cleaning stones and resetting them," McAllister said. "I wanted to see if there was a cemetery nearby where I could do that. My mom was telling me we had some family there and I remembered that Brenden's (Fenstermaker) grave was there. He was one of my best friends as a kid."

McAllister straightened Fenstermaker's stone and cleaned some of the older family stones before he decided to do more.

"I reached out to Annette (Houg) and she put me in touch with Denny (Houg)," McAllister said. "He was super excited. The first time I called him we set up a time to meet and we did some cleaning out there the first day and chatted. He was very receptive to ideas and things like that."

The Pine Ridge Cemetery Board has been working to catch up on maintaining headstones since before 2019, at which time Heritage Group North and the cemetery board worked together to get a grant to cover restoration at the cemetery and the historic caboose in town.

They used that money to hire Northern Bedrock to do the work and teach interested members how to continue cleaning and resetting memorials.

Denny Houg spearheaded that effort in the summer of 2021, but there are far too many stones for just one person.

Since stepping in to help, McAllister said they have cleaned and reset several rows near the maintenance sheds on the property. He has been joined not only by Houg, but also a roommate, Madeline Walczynski, and a friend. Walczynski has also returned to Pine Ridge to continue the work on days when McAllister is unavailable due to work.

Even with help, restoration and cleaning has plenty of hurdles.

"Cleaning stones is such a slow-going process," McAllister said. "It's also an expensive process if you do it correctly, and I don't want to do any work out there that's going to be reversed by weather in a couple months."

Some cemeteries have permanently damaged monuments attempting to clean them with harsh chemicals, wire brushes and pressure washing. Such efforts can permanently etch or otherwise damage the stones involved.

McAllister uses tools that are considered "sacrificial." That is, the brushes he uses are softer than the stone and the bristles will wear down long before they ever have a chance to scratch the stone itself.

Similarly, he uses chemicals specifically designed for the work he is doing, called D/2 Biological Solution. This chemical is safe around plants and animals and nondestructive to monuments. It also costs $45 per gallon. All of that is often too much for most cemeteries.

"The story of cemeteries I've been to all over the state is that there are a couple people, usually older folks, who are doing all they can with what they have," McAllister said. "They don't have a lot of money and they don't have a lot of manpower, so things start to slip even when you have some really dedicated people doing as much as they can."

That's why McAllister isn't seeking just to give a man a fish, he wants to teach a man to fish as well. To that end, McAllister has begun planning for a Saturday, Oct. 15, fundraising and educational event at the cemetery.

"It'll start at 1 p.m.," McAllister said. "There's going to be a bake sale there. There are going to be games for kids. There's going to be history walks and after that at around 2:30 p.m., if people are interested, there's going to be a cleaning demonstration. There will be some stones that are flagged so that people can come out and actually clean some of their own stones as well."

McAllister hopes to raise at least $500 toward cleaning supplies so that work to keep the cemetery maintained will continue even when he is out of town working. He also hopes to reinvigorate a part of American culture that has faded over the years, one in which the living cared for the resting places of the dead and weren't afraid to spend time in cemeteries.

"A lot of older people I've met have told me that in the past, cemeteries used to be much more popular spaces," McAllister said. "They used to have picnic tables and people would go there and have lunch. They would read there, anything to just visit their relatives and be around them and keep their memory alive. Now it's almost become a taboo to hang out in the cemetery longer than it takes to lay a flower down."

McAllister hopes the Oct. 15 event will not only educate people on how to care for their family resting places, but also encourage them to spend time there. The goal is to not only help the cemetery keep ahead of maintenance, but to connect families to members who have died.

On top of that, when McAllister sees an old cemetery, he also sees the area's past and the history of those who live in the community.

"Personally, it's more of a sentimental thing rather than spiritual," McAllister said. "I'll see these stones and some are from the 1850s, some of them are almost completely buried under the ground or have fallen over and vines are all over them or they are starting to crack. It's just interesting to think that these are people that have family, but for one reason or another, nobody comes to visit them anymore."

McAllister's work at Pine Ridge Cemetery hasn't been limited to stone cleaning and resetting. He has helped to paint the equipment shed on the cemetery grounds and install a kiosk that will eventually hold a map.

The work being done by McAllister would traditionally be very expensive. Similar services by Northern Bedrock can cost approximately $100 per monument, a sum that most cemeteries cannot afford due to the number of people who opt for cremation instead of burial.

That change in culture has increasingly put strain on cemeteries throughout the country. Northern Bedrock is a nonprofit, so services by other companies could cost even more.

Travis Grimler is a staff writer for the Pineandlakes Echo Journal weekly newspaper in Pequot Lakes/Pine River. He may be reached at 218-855-5853 or travis.grimler@pineandlakes.com.