Organization works to preserve 125 years of history at Montgomery County cemetery

GLADWYNE, Pennsylvania (WPVI) -- A cemetery in Gladwyne, Montgomery County, in the heart of the historic Mill Creek Valley, was in serious disrepair.

More than 125 years of history, religion, and culture lie beneath the brush and broken headstones.

One group, and one man in particular, has been working diligently to restore it.

"This is a passion and a calling, if you will," says gravestone conservator Joe Ferrinnini. "This is what I was put on this Earth to do."

One stone at a time, Ferrinnini is restoring dignity to the gravesites at Har Hasetim, a Jewish cemetery in Gladwyne.

"Their memories are being lost," he says. "That's a crime when your memory is forgotten. That's the worst thing that can happen to anybody."

The cemetery dates back to the 1890s.

Some of our area's first-generation European immigrants are buried here.

"After a few generations, people forget," Ferrinnini says.

The last burial was back in 1945, after which Har Hasetim fell into massive disrepair.

With no families to care for the space, The Friends of Gladwyne Jewish Memorial Cemetery was formed to preserve 125 years of history and honor the more than 900 people buried there.

"These are people who came to the United States in the late 1800s to escape persecution in Eastern Europe," says Neil Sukonik, president of Friends of Gladwyne Jewish Memorial Cemetery.

Their stories are now being restored and retold.

"I'm trying to put the pieces together, and I'm a perfectionist," Ferrinnini says. "It's really tough when you can't find all the pieces."

From records to studies, research with the help of Villanova University and Hebrew translators, slowly, they're putting names to these gravestones.

"A lady drove from Brooklyn to visit her great grandfather and I had just worked on this stone three days before," Ferrinnini says.

"If that doesn't sum it up why we're doing it, it's just the greatest feeling, being able to help these people," he added.