Drive two hours from the sandstone hollows of Hocking County to the flat glacial plains around Lima, and the ground itself seems to belong to two different states. Tending handles headstone cleaning and restoration across more than 1,800 cemeteries in the Ohio cities it already serves, from lakeshore towns in the north to old coal country in the southeast. Every visit runs under a $2,000,000 liability policy, with ICCFA membership standing behind the crew as well. None of that work looks the same from one part of the state to the next.
How Ohio's Geology and History Shape Headstone Care
Most of it comes down to where in Ohio a cemetery happens to sit. A repair that works in one region does nothing for a headstone dealing with a completely different kind of damage somewhere else in the state.
Ohio's Buried Teays Valley and Headstone Restoration
Long before the most recent ice sheet ground its way across the state, an ancient river system called the Teays cut a wide valley through what's now central and western Ohio. Glaciers buried that valley under thick, loose sediment. They never scoured it away, and the fill left behind never compacted the way the surrounding till did. That same loose fill supplies groundwater to towns across the region today. The ground drains and shifts unevenly for the same reason. A headstone base set into old valley fill settles unevenly over the decades, sometimes dropping several inches lower on one side before a family notices the lean. A cemetery can sit half on solid till and half on buried valley fill without any visible line between the two, so two rows a short walk apart sometimes age at completely different rates.
Tending resets a settled base on compacted gravel, deep enough to reach ground that isn't still adjusting to old valley fill. The reset gets checked again after the next freeze cycle to confirm the new footing holds. Work at this scale falls under headstone repair and restoration, and it's usually the first call once a family notices the lean.
Lake Erie Humidity and Bronze Marker Corrosion
Lake Erie is shallow enough to warm up fast every summer and give a lot of that heat back as evaporation. That moisture settles over towns along the southern shore and rarely clears out completely, even during a dry stretch. Winters bring their own version of the same pattern: lake-effect snow piles up heavily in the eastern shoreline counties, and the slow melt keeps cemetery ground damp well past when inland ground has dried out for the season. Cemetery plots near the shoreline hold onto that dampness for weeks at a time, and algae and lichen get plenty of room to spread across granite and limestone as a result. Bronze veterans' plaques catch the same conditions, and the metal builds a heavier patina season after season.
A soft-wash biocide treatment lifts algae and lichen without touching the polish underneath, and Tending's crew usually checks nearby bronze on the same visit. An older plaque near the shoreline is often left with a dull, uneven greenish cast once the surface growth is gone. Restoring a uniform finish on metal in that condition falls under bronze marker restoration, and a properly resealed plaque can go several years before it needs the same treatment again.
Appalachian Coalfield Acid Drainage and Headstone lettering repair
Southeastern Ohio's hill country was coal country for the better part of a century, and abandoned mines left more than empty tunnels behind. Groundwater moving through old mine workings in watersheds like Sunday Creek picks up sulfuric acid and dissolved iron along the way, and some of it eventually reaches the shallow water table under nearby cemeteries. The same acidic runoff turns some local streambeds a visible rust-orange. Anyone who has spent time near the old mining towns of Athens and Perry counties has seen the color firsthand. Marble and limestone headstones in that water path lose their polish early. Engraved lettering on those stones wears soft and shallow well before the rest of the surface shows much wear. A name carved a century ago can turn nearly unreadable long before any other part of the same stone starts to show wear.
Recutting worn lettering only works once the underlying acid exposure is addressed, since fresh grooves cut into acid-softened stone wear down again within a few seasons. Tending treats the surface first with a solution matched to the acidity already in the stone, then recuts and fills the lettering under Ohio's headstone lettering repair standards. A stone treated this way holds its depth for years before it needs attention again.
