By Christine Spencer
Local genealogy hobbyist and Godfrey Memorial Library Board of Trustees Member Ed Laput achieved a milestone for many people both living and dead. He began his journey in November 2007 with the idea of making a special donation for Godfrey’s online resources. He has been photographing gravestones and recording their vital information throughout Middlesex County, Connecticut and beyond. Not only does Laput take the photos and create the table of information, he also handles the tedious work of linking the photos to the surnames on the web pages that patrons view. On March 27th Laput submitted data and photos to Godfrey Memorial Library for his 100th cemetery.
“My primary motive,” Ed says, “began after I found a family member that came from Russia in the early 1900's and vanished with no one in the family having any idea where she went.” On line he found a transcription of cemetery stones in West Virginia recorded in 1940 and it documented that her death happened in 1939. “I broke through a wall and completed that lost section of our family history.”
Ed’s other motivation is he wants to make sure that some of these old stones will have a record and a photo before they are either stolen, destroyed or deteriorate from old age and that people in the future will be able to see and have at least a copy of that nonexistent stone.
Initially, he focused on cemeteries where some of his relatives were buried. He started with St. Nicholas Cemetery in Norwich, then to Colchester and St. Bridget in Moodus. East Hampton came next, and then Middletown, Haddam, Marlborough, and Portland. Many times he worked on multiple cemeteries at the same time, putting them all through their steps toward completion. “Now, I try to complete a town beginning with the smaller cemeteries and then get to the larger cemeteries before going to the next town. Salem, Berlin and Meriden are high on my list to be completed.” He’s done some cemeteries in Middlefield, Cheshire, Lebanon, Bozrah, Hebron and Marlborough.
When asked about his plan for the coming year Laput revealed, “I’d like to finish Meriden, Middletown and Lebanon. I plan on keeping the database up to date as new people are being added to the completed cemeteries. Lebanon is important as that was the headquarters during the Revolutionary War and has a high historical value. I have about 85,000 names at this point and I should reach 100,000 by the fall of this year.”
“The biggest challenge with photographing cemeteries,” Laput describes, “is the weather and, of course, the time of day to get the best photo.” Light and shadows have been frequent obstacles for a good photo as is the direction of the stone in relation to the sun. He has seen most everything that can get in his way from mammoth overgrown vines and trees in cemeteries long forgotten, to grass-covered, sunken, flat stones and statues or potted plants to the occasional threatening black snake. He has developed and honed his own method and routine for getting his task accomplished. He says he tries not to make too many return trips to a cemetery, “that slows down my available time to get to the final product, the finished web page.”
You might think “creeping” around cemeteries with a camera in your hand would attract some negative attention. Laput reports, “I haven’t gone to a cemetery in the last year without someone stopping me and asking what I'm doing, why I'm doing it and what I’m going to do with the information. I’ve had many caretakers help me with my project. At St. Sebastian Cemetery in Middletown, CT they came out with their mowing tractors last fall to mulch and blow the leaves so that the ground stones could be visible for me. Many people think that what I am doing is great and they sometimes tell me stories of their own. The only place that the police talked to me was at the new St. John Cemetery in Middletown, CT. There had been some vandalism at the cemetery in the past and they do patrol it. After talking to them I just get a wave as they go through.” Because of Ed’s passion for cemetery stone preservation, he is grateful to the officers who protect them.
Completing the web page has many challenges as well. Laput tries to get the most up to date information on a person, (i.e., the exact death date, birth date, place of birth and death, spouse’s first name and, for the women, their maiden name). “This is what makes the information that I provide more accurate and thorough than other cemetery sites.” It takes time to gather this information and build the HTML file for the website. He linked almost 85,000 surnames to a photo (accounting for those with no stone remaining or not yet placed). “After a while the eyes do go buggy,” Ed recounts with a laugh.
His devotion to his hobby has infiltrated many days and parts of his life these past two and a half years. The staff at Godfrey Memorial Library chuckles when Ed and his wife Bonnie go on vacation and Ed reports that he’s bringing his laptop and will have a cemetery finished when he gets back. “On vacation I choose a cemetery that I can complete and they are included in my lists.” This is why you’ll see a few out of state cemeteries that are a part of the Ed Laput Collection. Ed has photographed and recorded cemeteries in California, Arizona and Florida while on vacation. He discloses, “Bonnie is very supportive and sometimes finds a cemetery for me to do. Our friends even get involved and have introduced me to a man that is now helping me with the Salem cemeteries. Without this contact I would have never found some of these.”
After having the opportunity to see so many thousands of stones dating back to the 1700’s and those being produced today, Laput views some of these as amazing works of art. “The sculpture works of the stones at St. Sebastian in Middletown are the most ornate. However, Cove Cemetery in East Haddam along with Old Burying Ground in Cromwell display some great tabletop stones. While in Ormond Beach, FL. at Pilgrims Rest Cemetery I photographed some honeycomb graves that are gorgeous and interesting.”
Some of the stones Ed speaks of have a big curiosity factor like one from an Arizona cemetery where a single cowboy boot protrudes from the top of the casket-shaped cement grave covering. The stone reads: “If you want the other one, you’ll have to come down here and get it!” Another is at Ormond Hillside Cemetery in Florida where the founder of the Daytona Racetrack is buried and just this past year the owner of the world’s largest chain of Harley Motorcycles was buried there after he was killed riding his bike in Montana.
Ed Laput is committed to documenting as many cemeteries and their occupants as he has the strength and time to do. He told his wife this was something he wanted to get involved with when he retired. His happiness comes from knowing that his efforts preserve history and makes it easier for relatives of the deceased to locate their ancestors’ final resting place. But if you ask him what he enjoys most, he’ll tell you, “It’s the people that I have met who stop and talk to me about what they know about the cemetery and the people buried there. They have interesting stories to tell. That is precious.”
Look for the complete Ed Laput Collection of cemeteries online at www.godfrey.org. Full access to all cemetery databases requires the purchase of an online subscription (starts at $45). To view cemeteries on the Free Search page; go to our home page and put your cursor over the Search tab at the top, the click on Search Free! to view the current list of free resources.
Godfrey Memorial Library is the recipient of a grant from the Middlesex County Community Foundation to assist in making our cemetery databases in Middlesex County more accessible to the general public. All Middlesex County Cemeteries will be put on the Search Free! page beginning May 1st, 2010 and will remain free to view for one year.
Godfrey Memorial Library is a private library of genealogy, biography and family history, incorporated in 1947. It is free and open to the public Monday-Saturday, located at 134 Newfield Street, Middletown, CT 06457. Call 860.346.4375 for more information.
