For three years, his painstaking work to preserve Civil War tombstones in a Santa Ana graveyard was lavished with praise -- from history buffs, veterans groups, cemetery officials and a congresswoman.
But now, Gene-o Platt is watching in dismay as a squad of Boy Scouts prepares to undo his labor of love.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Thursday July 28, 2005 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 32 words Type of Material: Correction
Civil War tombstones -- A headline on an article in Wednesday's California section about Civil War tombstones in a Santa Ana cemetery said they were made of granite. They're made of marble.
Under orders from the Orange County Cemetery District, the marble headstones at Santa Ana Cemetery will soon be stripped back to their earlier state.
"It's heartbreaking," said Platt, who spent 3 1/2 years crawling around the tree-lined graveyard, refurbishing about 180 Civil War veterans' headstones. Leaning on a sheepskin-covered footstool, he scraped off fungus and lichen, then brushed several layers of white-pigmented sealer onto the Georgia marble. With drills and grinding tools, he enhanced worn lettering, which he then painted gold.
After finishing, he said a prayer over each grave.
Operating with permission from cemetery officials, he invested thousands of hours and dollars in the project, hoping his example would be copied nationwide.
Instead, it's being called a well-intentioned mistake.
Applying sealer to marble can cause the stone to deteriorate from the inside out because moisture in the rock can't escape, said Fred Oakley, a conservator with the Assn. of Gravestone Studies in Massachusetts.
Several other preservation experts agreed.
For that reason, the Veterans Administration, which owns Civil War tombstones, bars sealer from being applied to its monuments, said Mike Nacincik, a spokesman for the VA's National Cemetery Administration.
The VA also frowns on the gold paint that Platt used. "We use black lithochrome paint for lettering," Nacincik said.
So, why didn't anyone stop Platt?
"We didn't know it was a violation of federal policy," said Sam Randall, general manager for the Orange County Cemetery District, which oversees Santa Ana Cemetery, Anaheim Cemetery and El Toro Memorial Park.
Nacincik said cemetery district officials had no excuse for failing to act: "I would assume they're professionals like us and would understand that putting sealer on marble isn't beneficial."
Nacincik said he hoped the chemical solvent being used to strip off the sealer wouldn't cause further damage.
Platt, a Santa Ana resident who spent seven years in the Air Force as a radar technician, began his project in 1998 after visiting his wife's grave and noticing the aging Civil War markers nearby.
