Lynn cemetery workers dig their jobs

LYNN – Eric Langis and Brandon Smith occasionally encounter friends and relatives on their jobs but they prefer not to ? since they are gravediggers.When the last prayer is said and the last tear shed, the two Department of Public Works employees complete the final preparations marking the rituals that attend death. Langis and Smith have completed 426 burials so far this year in Pine Grove Cemetery and, if annual trends hold true, they will hit 500 before the year ends.Precision and a respect for the people the dead leave behind are the standards they apply to their work. Using a John Deere backhoe, the pair works in close proximity to expensive grave headstones and trees as they carve out 3-foot by 8-foot graves out of Pine Grove’s grassy vistas.”You have to be as careful as you can,” said Langis, a 10-year city employee whose job title is heavy equipment operator/carpenter 1st class. Jeffrey Stowell, acting assistant DPW superintendent overseeing cemeteries, said Langis has a detailed knowledge of Pine Grove’s sprawling burial sections and he works well with Smith, a truck driver/laborer 3rd class who has worked for the city for three years.The pair said they love working in Pine Grove’s hushed beauty, even in bad weather when they wear heavy rubber work pants and coats. Langis said his workplace gives him a constant connection with relatives buried in Pine Grove. He also likes his hours.”I’m in early, out early and I’m close to home,” he said.Smith said a cemetery corner lot reserved for infants occupies a special place in his heart.”But it’s a job – emotion can’t interfere,” he said.”Six feet under” is not an expression that universally applies to their work; Langis and Smith will dig down as much as 10 feet to push through rock or stubborn soil in order to prepare a grave. Stowell said Pine Grove has a “double-depth” burial section with 7-foot-deep graves that allow grave boxes used in burials to be stacked one on top of the other.Langis and Smith set the concrete steel-reinforced boxes into graves with the boxes open to receive a casket after graveside services are concluded. The graves must be dug large enough to hold a box and leveled off so the box fits correctly in a grave.Stowell said Pine Grove, like many cemeteries, experiences a space shortage to varying degrees. He said plans are on the drawing board to build a $75,000 columbarium next to the cemetery’s pond next spring. The structure will contain 112 niches with each providing room for two urns containing cremated remains.”A lot of people want to be buried by the pond,” he said.Smith and Langis are often surprised by the different graveside rituals brought to a burial by mourners who come from different countries and practice a variety of religions. The workers at times field complaints about personal objects left at graves falling victim to the weather or vandalism, or about animals eating plants and flowers left by headstones.But, “sometimes, people say ?thank you,'” Smith said.