He Didn't Serve With the Living, But Honors the Dead

‘The Good Cemeterian’: Man Honors Veterans by Cleaning Headstones
NBC News
by PHIL MCCAUSLAND and KERRY SANDERS
May 29, 2017

"I feel connected to them," Lumish said. "And it's very important for me to be able to tell their story and I love to be able to show these individuals and show their accomplishments."

Andrew Lumish cleans the headstones of fallen soldiers.

One Florida man has taken it upon himself to help restore a Tampa graveyard and its veterans' headstones.

Though he has never served in the military, Andrew Lumish, 46, spends his little free time scrubbing and cleaning soldiers' gravestones — some dating back to the Civil War — in the L'Unione Italiana Cemetery.

Known as "The Good Cemeterian," Lumish found the headstones while pursuing his passion for photography. He thought they were beautiful but was bothered by the amount of dirt, mold and mildew that had overtaken them. Some of the men buried there did not have families to take care of their gravesites, so he stepped in to provide a little elbow grease and honor the fallen veterans.
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