It seems like every day is Veterans Day for historian KellyAnn Grimaldi, because she’s made it her work to remember those who served. In 2007, Grimaldi decided to take on the unique task of identifying every Civil War soldier buried in the 114-acre St. Agnes Cemetery in Menands. Using a list of 248 names culled from a survey of vets in the area, the historian set out to restore and replace the cemetery’s decrepit tombstones. Grimaldi has already identified 508 soldiers, and is certain there are more.
“The veterans are going to be forgotten and that’s just not acceptable,” Grimaldi said. “I want people to come to me if they know they have an ancestor that was a veteran that may not be marked at all. We want to be able to identify the location of the soldier’s grave and make sure it’s properly memorialized.” Grimaldi launched the “Adopt a Civil War Veteran” campaign, in which anyone can sponsor the restoration of a soldier’s gravestone. Ancestors, veterans and even strangers have already helped fund more than 90 brand new markers and the cleaning supplies to restore 140 deteriorated stones. Tracking down all the graves was a task made more difficult by the fact many are unmarked. When the cemetery opened in 1867, a few cemeteries in the area closed and many unmarked bodies were transferred to St. Agnes. Marking graves has always been the responsibility of the family, Grimaldi said, and sometimes issues arise. If a wife died before her military husband, she is entitled a military marker. His regiment and company would be inscribed at her grave but when the husband died, sometimes no one was around to claim the body and the grave remained unmarked. “Those graves that are unmarked, oftentimes the only evidence they are buried there is the depression in the ground, where you see the wooden box they were buried in collapsed,” Grimaldi said. “You know there’s a body there, you just don’t know who it is.” Using records and section maps, Grimaldi walks around the cemetery sticking a metal probe in the ground, looking for the soldiers. She searches for hints of marble stone that over the years have sunken into the ground or have broken into pieces. With some volunteers, Grimaldi gets on her hands and knees, trying to pull out the 240-pound gravestones. “I had a team of women, the oldest was 85 years old. We all worked together on hot summer days fixing gravestones. It was fun,” Grimaldi said. “The 85-year-old … she was a pip. She would haul those graves out of the ground.” A minor setback to the effort came from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. While new markers are free with $100 installation, a new requirement this year requires the soldier’s next-of-kin to make the request for a new marble stone. But if no one comes forward as the next-of-kin, “then that soldier lays in an unmarked grave. It’s terrible,” Grimaldi said. With the markers they can restore or replace, Grimaldi said they often have large ceremonies to honor the veterans. Last year, Vietnam veteran John Mullen discovered he had a family member who had been in the Civil War buried in the cemetery in an unmarked grave. The grave was found and restored. “I think Kelly’s done a magnificent job. It’s important to me personally because these men that received the Medal of Honor basically laid down their life for other veterans,” Mullen, of Troy, said. “Men don’t die in battle for medals and glory. They die for other men.” Funding has also run dry, Grimaldi said. The project received a $10,000 grant from the Bender Family Foundation and financial donations from several other groups, but things are now at a standstill. “I have an entire section of excavated gravestones that are still laying flat because we ran out of money,” Grimaldi said. Even with the tremendous amount of time and effort the project takes, Grimaldi isn’t giving up anytime soon. “We just gotta keep it going,” Grimaldi said.
To volunteer, see a list of the cemetery’s Civil War veterans or to donate, visit www.capitaldistrictcemeteries.org/adopt_a_civil_war_veteran.html.