Andrew Lumish; ‘Good Cemeterian’

The Tampa Bay Times reports about Andrew Lumish who owns a Chem-Dry upholstery and carpet cleaning franchise, and he’s a hobbyist photographer;

A few years ago, Lumish, 45, of Land O’Lakes, whose other hobby is photography, carried a camera into the Oaklawn Cemetery, an aged Tampa burial ground.

“It was beautiful,” he said.

He shot photos of historic graves. He sought more cemeteries because they are “gorgeous,” he said, and because he loves history.

He discovered that the bodies buried beneath a lot of the headstones he saw belonged to military veterans.

But “something bothered me,” he said. “Their final resting places were total disasters.”

The granite, marble and sandstone monuments that marked their graves had been battered by bad weather. Mold, mildew and lichens had grown over them. Some of the headstones had been there for more than a hundred years.

“They’d been neglected from the time they’d been buried,” Lumish said.

So Lumish spends his free time cleaning up veterans’ headstones. From Fox5 DC;

Lumish has cleaned about 300 headstones in two and a half years. Along with the photographs, Lumish researches the veteran and posts some history about them. They’ve belonged to every branch of the military, and have fought in the Civil War, Spanish American War, World War I, World War II, the Korean War and Vietnam.

When he finishes each job he does the same thing. He told the Tampa Bay Times, “I thank them for their service, and walk away.”

Category: Support the troops