Gravestone Missing For 150 Years Was Being Used As A Marble Fudge-Making Slab

A fallen gravestone served as a fudge-making slab for a woman in Okemos, Michigan. As per CNN, Friends of Lansing’s Historic Cemeteries President Loretta S. Stanaway said the stone had been missing for 150 years but was discovered on an estate auction site in August after the family matriarch had moved into a facility for Alzheimer’s. After much research and a bit of organization, the gravestone is now back in its rightful place.

  1. A local resident noticed the gravestone on the site. After it was listed online, a former Lansing citizen realized that the stone likely belonged to a local city cemetery and reached out to FOLHC to alert them. “The family hired an auctioneer to take care of the items,” Stanaway recalled. “As he was going through things, he saw this slab of marble in the kitchen and turned it around and discovered it was a gravestone. The family told him they used it to make fudge. The family could not say how or when the gravestone got there.”
  2. The previous owner’s family said the stone was used for fudge-making. Since the hard marble surface was perfectly smooth and cool, the previous owner’s family revealed that she used the surface to make seasonal fudge.
  3. It took a while to find out where the stone belonged. Stanaway revealed that it wasn’t immediately clear where the headstone had come from and took a lot of research to find out. “We looked into trying to find any relatives to see what we could figure out what the story was from a relative standpoint or someone who could give us permission to put the monument back where it belongs, but we weren’t able to find any survivors,” she recalled.
  4. Eventually, it was restored to its rightful place. The stone belonged to Peter J. Weller, who died in 1849 in Lansing and was buried in Oak Park Cemetery. His grave moved to Mount Hope Cemetery in 1875, but the stone never came with it. It’s unclear how exactly the previous owner came into possession of the stone, but thankfully it’s now back where it belongs and Weller is resting next to his daughters nearly 172 years after his death.
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