The new owner of the former West Park Monumental Works site in McKees Rocks is on a mission to unite several dozen cemetery headstones and a few military and memorial markers with the families of their rightful owners.
Many of the stones are older, some could be engraving mistakes, while others may be salesman’s samples. The property owner, George Dudash III, has no way of knowing which is which.
He said he hadn’t thought much about the granite markers scattered around the bright green building trimmed in yellow that he purchased last fall for use as a storage facility. He had been considering stacking the stones for use as a retaining wall.
That was, until the engraving on one in particular caught his eye. It was the gravestone of a Norbert Schwartzmiller, the name of a man he recalled working with many years ago. He wondered if it could be the same person?
“I recognized a lot of the names. I may not know the families, but I know the names,” said Mr. Dudash, 59, a lifelong resident of Kennedy, school director for Montour School District and president and CEO of NorthWest Emergency Medical Services.
After some research, he sent mail to an area Schwartzmiller family he thought might be related. While the stone did not belong to his former co-worker, he found that it actually belonged to the man’s son, a Norbert Jr. who died in 1999.
At this point, Mr. Dudash decided he would make it his “project to get the headstones repatriated.” He’s located owners of two other stones in the past few months.
Norbert Schwartzmiller III, of Elliott, said he had tried for years to have the headstone placed at his father’s grave, but grew frustrated with the process and had all but given up hope after several years ago realizing that the monument company had closed its doors. He said he figures there are other people out there in the same boat as his family had been.
The family was surprised to receive the letter from Mr. Dudash, who recruited the help of Ryan Kadlecik, owner of Memory Keepers: Monument Sales & Grave Care in Kennedy in placing their stone at Mt. Olivet Cemetery in Scott. Mr. Kadlecik is related by marriage to the former owner of West Park Monument, a company that went back generations. Without going into details, he said he and his wife Cheri had a falling out with the family years ago.
“The good thing is, we were able to place a few stones for people,” he said.
Mr. Schwartzmiller said he took his mother, Bernadette, to visit family gravesites at Mt. Olivet on Dec. 17, the day after his father’s birthday, and was unaware the stone had been placed at the time.
“She was crying her eyes out when she saw it,” said Mr. Schwartzmiller of his mother, who was “overjoyed” and “burst into tears” once she realized her husband’s stone was finally marking his grave.
“That man is a saint! I just couldn’t believe it. Yes, he made us very happy,” Mrs. Schwartzmiller said of Mr. Dudash and his efforts to return the marker to its rightful owner.
Besides a black stone to mark a tree planted in memorial for a Reno Santvicca, 1983 – 2002 and dozens of other headstones, Mr. Dudash would like to find the owners of markers for World War I veterans Harry S. Cercone and Camilo D’ Antonio and World War II vet William J. Petrovich. He thinks his collection of stones might make a great genealogy project for a Boy Scout or someone interested in history.
“The bottom line is at some point I have to get them out of here. I would like to get them to their rightful owners,” Mr. Dudash said.
If you think a family member’s marker stone might be left at the Singer Avenue location, contact Mr. Dudash via mail at 22 Jenny Lane, Coraopolis, PA 15108 or via email at gdudash@northwestems.net.
Sonja Reis, freelance writer: suburbanliving@post-gazette.com.
First Published: February 19, 2016, 5:00 a.m.
