Veterans and volunteers did their part to clean up a county park.
Members of the Manitowoc County Civil War Round Table brought their brushes, soapy water, and elbow grease to clean off memorials at Manitowoc County Veterans Memorial Park yesterday morning.
Volunteers cleaned the monuments bearing the names of fallen soldiers from the Civil War and beyond, as well as memorials left under trees for veterans who passed away.
Volunteer Mike Duescher has volunteered with the group for 4 years, cleaning gravestones, and says he loves volunteering.
Paul Kluenker says even though he didn’t serve, he does it for veterans.
He added, “I just appreciate our military so much that it’s a small way of giving back.”
Duescher says they had to use special brushes to avoid ruining the stones they were cleaning.
“If we ruin them, we have to pay to replace them,” he noted. “And if you use metal, you will scrape the stones, and it looks awful.”
The group has also cleaned Civil War monuments in Evergreen Cemetery.
The man affectionately known as “cleaning agent #1,” Veteran Joe Tadych, says cleaning gravestones started after he couldn’t see what was on them.
His favorite part is seeing what happens after a stone is cleaned.
“The sun comes out, the stone dries, it looks like it’s brand new,” he described. “I mean, you can read the name, you think, ‘man, that is really neat.’”
This was the first year the Civil War Round Table cleaned the memorials in Veterans Memorial Park after previously focusing on Evergreen Cemetery.
