The first time that I met Cousin Hubert was in his somber location of an office on the main street in Marietta, Georgia, where he practiced law for many years. I climbed steep wooden stairs inside a brick building that led to a large room with the familiar solid oak barrister bookcases of lawbooks encased behind glass-paned doors. Hubert’s interest was in preserving old, neglected cemeteries, and in the process, he collected a large database of tombstone inscriptions, which he sent to local libraries and shared with relatives. As a genealogist, I had discovered tombstones buried under the dirt and understood Hubert’s quest. The slate rock used for tombstones was carved with chisel and mallet, each letter artfully hand-carved. A beautiful technique that is not in use today. But the fine-grained, foliated rock formed from compressed shale or mudstone, destined to break in pieces, was replaced by cement. Yet, it seems time spares no genius, as the cement letters also lose definition. There are some methods to discover the time-worn letters, such as using paper and crayons to display names and dates, or, my favorite, using the fingers to trace each letter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n