Westmoreland photographers record grave sites for historical society

Franny Petras can easily sum up why she dedicates so much of her time to photographing regional cemeteries.

“Every tombstone is important,” she said.

Petras volunteers with Baltzer Meyer Historical Society in Hempfield, where she found a receptive audience for her photographs.

She also posts her pictures on the website Find A Grave.

“I got this new digital camera, and I didn't know how to use it,” said Petras, 56, of Greensburg.

A distant relative asked her to take pictures of family plots at Hillview Cemetery in Greensburg.

“So I went up there to practice,” she said.

After retiring from Verizon in 2010, she devoted more time to her hobby.

“I thought this would be a good asset for (the society) to have as a resource,” she said.

Sites like Find A Grave allow elderly people or those who live a distance away to “virtually visit” their ancestors' grave sites online.

Petras estimated that she has placed 56,000 photos on Find A Grave.

Because of travel times, she visits cemeteries primarily in the southwest corner of Westmoreland County.

“If I can get a map of a site, I go grid by grid,” Petras said.

Archiving the stones is time consuming, and she never guarantees she has photographed every headstone in a cemetery, she said.

Some headstones are puzzles, proclaiming something as inscrutable as “Grandfather.”

“Who is it? I try to call (cemetery staff) and get a name,” Petras said.

Challenges have included a lack of records and inscriptions in foreign languages or worn away by time and weather.

“If we could get someone to translate Polish and Italian, that would be great,” she said.

Sometimes she has photographed a well-known person's grave site before learning of the person's claim to fame.

Negro league baseball player James “Buster” Clarkson died in Jeannette in 1989 and is buried in Brush Creek Cemetery, Hempfield.

Connellsville native and radio reporter Herbert Morrison, who broadcast the 1937 Hindenburg disaster, is buried in Scottdale Cemetery.

She has posted photos of both on Find A Grave.

“You do see some things and think, ‘Wow.' It's history. It's amazing,” Petras said.

Many area gravestones bear 1918 as the year of death; an influenza pandemic killed nearly 700,000 Americans in 1918-19.

Kathi King of Rostraver shares Petras' interest in documenting cemeteries.

She became intrigued while searching for the grave of an infant of relatives. He was born in between census periods, and his church baptismal records were destroyed in a church fire.

“There was no proof he existed,” she said.

It took King, 59, two hours to find his gravestone, and she realized she could have photographed the whole cemetery in that time.

Like Petras, she has learned of some unusual graves.

“There is some interesting folklore out there. There is one grave in Monongahela Cemetery that has what looks like a broom on it. People will ask, ‘Did you find the witch?' It's actually an inverted torch, meaning a light has gone out,” King said.

She and Petras work in some cemeteries independently and split up the larger ones.

King estimated the two have together photographed more than 200,000 gravestones.

She makes her pictures available to the Baltzer Meyer Historical Society and posts on Find A Grave.

Bonnie Bach, a Baltzer Meyer volunteer, helps the two with posting their photos.

“I'm their secretary,” Bach, 52, of Greensburg, joked.

Historical society President Bruce Shirey appreciates the skills of younger, technologically savvy volunteers such as Petras and Bach.

“That's our future,” he said.

Mary Pickels is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. She can be reached at 724-836-5401 or mpickels@tribweb.com.