Man honors veterans by restoring their gravestones

A gravestone cleaned by Andrew Lumish.

Armed with water, brushes, and environmentally safe cleaning solution, Andrew Lumish spends every Sunday at Woodlawn Cemetery in Tampa cleaning the gravestones of veterans who fought in conflicts from the Civil War to Vietnam.

"It's pretty messy, pretty dirty," he told WUSF. "We're pulling out dirt and biological material that's been here since 1921. So, a lot of elbow grease here." Lumish says that over the last five years, he's cleaned about 600 gravestones, with some covered in so much mold and mildew it was impossible to read the names. It all started when Lumish, a history buff, was at another cemetery taking photos, and saw how the gravestones of some veterans were in complete disrepair. Because he owns his own cleaning company, Lumish decided he would give back by bringing new life to the gravestones.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.