Restoring the past

AFTON - From a small business operating out of the family home to the community staple today, Hull Monument Service has become an example of giving back to the local community.

“You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours,” said Rob Hull.

Rob and Tess Hull created Hull Monument Service as a family business during the pandemic, and over four years they grew the business. The company now builds, repairs, sets and cleans headstone monuments for cemeteries.

The pair moved from working in their house into an office building in the town square. After starting with cleaning headstones, they expanded to the other facets of the business, including headstone design.

A witness to the nuclear bomb tests, the original Union County settlers and veterans who served their country are just a few of the stories found in local cemeteries. The motivations for the pair originates from a shared interest in genealogy and history, tracking the origins of headstones and graves.

“We find it fun to go to a cemetery,” Rob said. “Kind of sounds morbid. It’s neat.”

The business conducts services for over 40 local cemeteries. They work closely in Afton and Greenlawn in particular, including being major parts of any volunteer days, such as during the spring clean-up day.

The two have also been involved with teaching the local community about proper cemetery care, with a well-maintained Facebook page providing information and regular visits with kids’ programs to help build community support for volunteer work.

One of the biggest priorities for the Hulls is making sure their customers are making sound decisions, especially in regards to the headstone design. It’s important to them that customers aren’t going overboard in what could be an emotional time for them.

“In that timeframe, they’re thinking with their heart and not their head,” Tess said. “They end up spending oodles of money on a stone.”

To help with this process, the Hulls provide a service to have a headstone made early before an individual’s death, which they highly recommend. These headstones are called “preneed” headstones.

“People will come in, preplanned,” said Rob. “They want this stone so it’s taken care of, we set it, and all we have to do later is the death date.”

“They don’t want their kids to have to worry about it,” said Tess. “I always try to promote the heck out of preneed.”

After a headstone is designed, it is approved from the granite company that Hull works with to ensure high quality headstones: Rex Granite Company based in St. Cloud, Minnesota. The finished headstone is then sent back to the Hulls, who set it themselves.

The pair split the business between the two of them. Tess works with customers during the design process, along with organizing the business’ website and Facebook. Rob works in the cemeteries, helping set and clean the monuments.

Hull Monument also makes sure to find time for veterans’ headstones, cleaning and restoring them free-of-charge. It’s a show of respect for those who fought for their country.

“When I’m out there, I’m looking at that stone and seeing that name and I think about what those people had, what they did,” said Rob.

“They didn’t have a choice, and they did it with honor and pride,” said Tess.

The worst aspect of the business for the Hulls is having to potentially deny requests or pick and choose which graves are more important for restoration.

“Every cemetery constantly needs work,” said Tess. “It gets hard too, they only get so much money in the budget, and then they have to pick and choose.

No matter who is under the headstones, they are still important to the Hulls. Without proper care, the lives and history of generations past can be lost to time.

“There is a story behind all the headstones, every single one of them,” said Rob. “Whether it’s just that guy’s name and death date. That guy has a story, and to think of what his story was or witnessed in 1900, I think about that stuff when I work on them.”