Cemeteries such as Glenwood are a significant piece of Flint’s built heritage. Besides containing diverse, creative, and very personal histories, cemeteries are one of the few historic sites in flint still used for its original purpose. Houses get converted to museums, schools and warehouses into housing, and churches into venues or offices. But because of the unique use of these landscapes, cemeteries cannot be adapted into other uses. Perhaps this is why so many of our historic cemeteries are in need of intervention. And, it is intervention and preservation that are at the heart of the type of enraged research and learning partnership between Glenwood Cemetery and the University of Michigan-Flint, Department of History. A key element of that partnership is putting students together with community members to preserve the historic monuments and grounds of Glenwood Cemetery.

The most recent artifact of that partnership was a cemetery preservation workshop held in September 2021. Working with the Michigan Historic Preservation Network to sponsor and promote the event, UM-Flint and Glenwood invited community members from all over Michigan to learn the proper preservation techniques for historic cemeteries. The workshop was led by students and alumni of University of Michigan-Flint’s cemetery preservation program, a teaching and research project of the Department of History. Under the supervision of Thomas Henthorn, students led participants in the workshop in hands-on instruction of cleaning monuments – making sure to underscore the literature available from the State Historic Preservation Office. We finished the workshop by resenting the individual monument of Gov. Henry Howland Crapo and fixing a broken obelisk with the help of Tim Riley, owner of Legacy Headstone Preservation and alumnus of UM-Flint. While cleaning headstones is an activity that contributes immensely to the preservation of stones, moving and fix stones should be left to a professional who has the proper training and the right equipment. Look for more preservation opportunities at Glenwood, we would love to have your help in preserving this historic landscape.