Tasha Tietz and Kelly Penman Jr., two nurses who spend their spare time cleaning and restoring grave markers in South Dakota and Iowa, see aging gravestones as reminders of the people's names behind them — not simply weathered pieces of stone.
That belief has grown into a community service effort rooted in care, dignity, and remembrance.
Here's what to know
Before taking on larger restoration projects, both first focused on graves in their own families, Dakota News Now reported. Tietz, an Aberdeen nurse known online as "Graveyard Girl," and Penman, a Carlisle, Iowa, nurse who goes by "The Cemetery Guy," later expanded those efforts.
According to Tietz, her starting point was tending the graves of relatives and ancestors. From there, and with permission, she moved on to cleaning additional markers at Aberdeen's Riverside Memorial Cemetery. After creating her Facebook page in 2020, she also began posting videos of the work.
Those posts now fit into a social media niche nicknamed "GraveTok," where audiences watch gravestones being cleaned and restored.
She also looks into the lives of the people named on the markers and shares these people's stories to a wider audience, putting pieces of local history back into public view.
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Tietz said, "Everyone deserves to be remembered. Everyone deserves their name; one place to mark that their life existed on this earth."
More background
The most saddening graves that Tietz works on are those of infants, she said, including an infant named Mildred Strupe. "I do feel a connection with these infants, and I think I would help to keep their story living on when they didn't get that chance," she said.
In Iowa, Penman has taken on comparable work with permission at gravestones around the state. Those efforts earned him recognition as Iowan of the Day, and he said the restorations can even help relatives reconnect after years apart.
What can be done?
Neither Tietz nor Penman suggests that people should begin this kind of work casually or without preparation.
Anyone interested needs permission first, whether that comes from cemetery officials, trustees, sextons, or family members tied to the grave.
Just as important as remaining respectful to the deceased's family or cemetery owners is learning the right methods. Older gravestones can be permanently damaged by the wrong cleaners or materials, so proper techniques should come before any marker is touched.
Tietz said, "All stones mark a life, and all lives were important and worth being remembered. Whether this lasts for 5 years, 10 years, 20 years, it was worth doing to me, so that's all that matters."
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