05/04/2026
by Ken Garfield
Donna England was raised to care for those who can’t take care of themselves. That includes washing the mud from someone’s final resting place. Donna cleans tombstones.
As she stands in the cemetery at Bethlehem United Methodist Church in her hometown of Statesville, N.C., it’s clear that this is more a calling than a business. Everett and Mary Lou Perkins, two of her “clients,” are buried here. They were loved in life. Shouldn’t they be loved enough in death that their tombstone gleams?
The name of Donna’s labor of love is Steward Of God’s Acre – Cleaning With A Purpose. As she explains, “Being a steward is taking care of things, not just the physical but the spiritual.”
Clearly this is about more than a cleaning solution and bristle bush.
Donna, 56, was already living a meaningful life before she became a tombstone cleaner. She served in the U.S. Army. She works for a nonprofit that helps at-risk youth. She runs a summer literacy camp for kids in Grades 1-3. She leads a Rock Steady boxing class that helps people with Parkinson’s disease stay as fit as possible. Despite the war that rages in The United Methodist Church over homosexuality, she and her partner of 23 years, Sherry, feel God’s love at Monticello United Methodist Church. A lifetime ago, Donna kicked drugs and alcohol and is proud to tell her story if it will help others.
Cleaning tombstones came as a revelation if you believe in revelations. Donna was already taking care of family graves. A job in the floral department at Harris Teeter honed her gift for making arrangements for funerals. Being a woman of faith who thinks outside the box and isn’t afraid of hard work? You get the picture.
Since March 2021, she has cleaned tombstones and foot markers for 35 paying clients in and around Statesville. (FYI, tombstones are typically made of granite, marble, concrete or sandstone/limestone.)
Donna’s first client, Wes Orren of Taylorsville, N.C., found her like most of the clients who came after. As she describes it, “I talked to someone who talked to someone who talked to someone.” Donna cleaned Wes’ family mausoleum at Little River Baptist Church. His mother, Brounda Kay Reid, was laid to rest there in 2004. She was a very particular person. If she had seen those black streaks, Wes says, there would have been heck to pay. “Donna had to wash it twice,” he says.
Depending on the size and condition of the final resting place, Donna’s fee has ranged from $85 to $700. That top number covered 20 hours spent cleaning nine headstones and 12 footstones in a church cemetery. Donna put a rush on the job. “The family wanted it done before the church homecoming (service),” she says.
Donna uses D/2 Biological Solution, which she orders online. She sprays it on the tombstone or marker (it’s environmentally safe) and lets it set for a day or two. She returns and sprays a weaker solution of D/2 and water. She uses a natural bristle brush to remove the red mud and other yuk and washes it all down with water. Sometimes she uses a toilet bowl brush. She also mows, weeds and removes dead flowers.
If you’re a born entrepreneur, you’d say this is a growth business. Sons and daughters have moved away and aren’t inclined to drive or fly 500 miles back home to scrape dirt off mom’s tombstone. Church volunteers who used to do this sort of work have aged out. Who knows if you can count on city-owned cemeteries to practice TLC. Even though cremation is overtaking burial as the disposition of choice, many will bury a loved one’s cremains and mark the spot rather than throw ashes to the wind or store them on the fireplace mantel.
Rusty Tysor, director of the N.C. Cemetery Association, says he sometimes fields calls from people who say, “We need to do something with mama, she’s been sitting on the shelf for years.” Others will call and ask how to clean a tombstone. There is no shortage of potential cleaning jobs. North Carolina, Tysor says, is home to 30,000 cemeteries.
The true rewards of a job well done…
In the cool of the morning or dusk of early evening, when it’s just Donna, a bristle brush and a dirty tombstone, she revels in the peace and quiet and toil.
And when the sun and moon finally shine bright on body and soul, loved ones will cry. So will Donna.
Ken Garfield is a freelance writer/editor who specializes in obituaries and writes about customs surrounding death. Reach him at [email protected]. Reach Donna England at [email protected].
