ATHOL — Richard D. Verock worked in insurance until 1972.
That’s when he visited Athol Granite Works to talk with client James Hodge, who owned the business. Hodge’s stonecarver had recently moved to Florida and Hodge asked Verock to help him with a few tasks. When they were done, Hodge offered to employ Verock, then 21, and promised to train him in the craft of monument-making.
“I took a cut in pay and I immediately loved the job,” Verock recalls.
He bought the company in 1978 and he’s proud to say Athol Granite Works is the oldest continuously-operating business in Athol, having started in 1853, the same year President Franklin Pierce was inaugurated. The business has seen 31 commanders in chief since that time, and Verock says it has always been a pillar of the community, through times good and bad, for nearly 165 years. Enoch T. Lewis started the company, which bounced around a few different locations before settling at 1265 South Main St.
“It’s a different challenge every day, a different task every day. That’s what keeps your interest,” Verock says. “It’s not for everyone. … It’s almost a vocation.”
He says the spring and fall are the industry’s busiest times of year, with Memorial Day and Veterans Day generating market demand for monuments, tombstones and plaques. Business slows in the winter because granite quarries in the Northeast don’t produce stone and customers realize frozen ground makes monument installation more difficult.
Verock, the company’s sixth owner, says his work can be found throughout the area and as far away as Pennsylvania. The company’s clients include the University of Massachusetts, Amherst College, Northampton Remembers, Athol High School, the Marty Sender Riverwalk and numerous mausoleums and cemeteries. The fact that people are memorialized after their lives end makes the monument industry, like the funeral business, one that is coupled with death.
“There certainly are challenges from an emotional standpoint. We all can empathize with people’s loss. There are some things that really hit hard. A fire victim or a car accident — those kinds of things are very traumatic for everyone involved,” Verock says. “I will say that, from my point of view, there is a great deal of satisfaction knowing that you’ve helped them through that situation, because as a professional you can guide them.
“The other thing that’s very rewarding for me is the number of friends I’ve ended up with over the years,” he adds. “When you work with people over a period of time to create the memorial, you end up knowing a lot about them and they, in turn, learn a lot about you and it becomes a friendship that sometimes just never ends.”
“Most people walk around in a daze for a while” following a tragedy,” he says. “That’s where we come in and really help the situation.”
He says monuments for people who have lived longer, healthier lives tend to be more celebratory.
Verock bought Dorsey Memorials in Amherst in 1989 and had a shop in Gardner for five years in the 1990s. Cyndi Wheeler has worked for Verock since 1994 and has spent most of that time at the Amherst location at 707 Main St. She says she does mostly secretarial work and coordinates with cemetery caretakers and funeral directors. She says dealing with people grieving comes with the territory.
“You eventually learn that you have to leave it here and you have to learn to do that,” she says. “When I started this job, I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to do it. It is a learning process.
“I have met some wonderful people through this business,” she adds. “Everybody that walks in is different. They have different expectations of what they want to do for their loved ones.”
Wheeler says many clients are “pre-need,” meaning they want to purchase a stone for themselves to prepare for the inevitable.
Verock says the granite industry has grown dramatically in the past 10 to 15 years as most quarries are operating at 80 to 90 percent capacity, whereas it used to be 60 to 70 percent capacity. He says he imports granite from around the world and this region’s granite capital is Barre, Vt. With the advent of granite countertops and mailbox posts, quarries are opening in various pockets of the planet.
He says South Dakota is known for a brown granite called mahogany granite. The American South produces a gray granite and some pink granites. Verock says he imports a black and red from India and a blue pearl granite from Norway and Sweden, while China is a big player in some of the black granites.
He says gray granites were predominantly used from the 1800s until roughly 1960 when people began requesting new colors. Verock says tombstones have become an extension of the deceased person’s personality and can be engraved with designs commemorating military service, relationships and hobbies. He also says computer-aided design systems have revolutionized the business, making designs more efficient and decreasing the potential for error.
“I’m optimistic about the future of this industry, even though some people would say that it’s a dying industry,” he said, pun intended. “It certainly isn’t.”
You can reach Domenic Poli at: dpoli@recorder.com
or 413-772-0261, ext. 258
On Twitter: @DomenicPoli