TORONTO: Non-Jewish Volunteer Restores Jewish Gravestones, Refusing Payment
Todd Clayton cleans weathered headstones at Roselawn Avenue Cemetery without charging families, carefully returning visitors' stones to their places and planning to continue his volunteer work in the spring.
A non-Jewish volunteer in Toronto is restoring weathered Jewish gravestones without charging the families, bringing comfort to relatives who live far from the cemetery.
Todd Clayton, 53, works full time in information technology and has been cleaning headstones at Roselawn Avenue Cemetery. He first cared for the graves of his own relatives in Goderich, Ontario, then decided to continue the work closer to his Toronto home.
Before beginning, Clayton sought permission from the cemetery and the families. He later restored the headstones of the parents of Esther Naiberg, a Toronto native living in Jerusalem. When he declined payment, she made a donation in his honour to a charity he chose.
Tammy Finestone of Chicago also contacted him about her great-great-grandfather's deteriorating marble headstone. Clayton cleaned it in two passes, explaining that older marble needs extra care because it is porous.
Clayton says each headstone takes about an hour to clean. He is careful to preserve Jewish cemetery customs, returning stones left by visitors to the same places after his work is complete.
"It's not just a tombstone. It's a physical representation of somebody," Clayton said.
He had restored three headstones when his story was first reported on November 12 and plans to continue in the spring. He says he intends to keep helping at Roselawn for as long as he can and the cemetery will have him.