LANSING (WWJ) -- A man from Lansing who has been dead since 1849 can finally rest in peace.
The headstone of Peter J. Weller has been missing for nearly 150 years, but was finally recovered over the summer when it was found in a home where it had been used to make fudge.
No one from the Okemos home knows exactly how the gigantic white granite slab -- which is more than 5-feet-tall -- came to be in family’s possession.
MLive reports that the mystery of the missing headstone was unlocked when the matriarch of the family was recently moved to an assisted living facility, and an auctioneer was brought in to take care of the items in the home.
When the auctioneer was examining the large granite stone, he turned it over to discover the inscription and realized it was actually a headstone.
“No one in family knew how or when they came to be in possession of it,” Loretta S. Stanaway, President of the Friends of Lansing’s Historic Cemeteries, told MLive. “The homeowners just said, ‘We used the backside of it to make fudge.’ We had no way to find out whether the family knew it was a legitimate monument or if they thought it was just a throwaway or something.”
The headstone was donated to Lansing’s Historic Cemeteries by another local resident.
Members from the organization believe that the headstone was likely lost when Weller was moved from one Lansing cemetery to another in 1875.
A dedication is planned for Sunday, September 23 at Mt. Hope Cemetery, located at 1800 E. Mt. Hope Ave. in Lansing.
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