Sterling man restores forgotten Iowa cemeteries, honoring lost families

A Whiteside County man is single-handedly restoring broken and buried tombstones in rural cemeteries, uncovering the stories of tenant farmers, forgotten children, and families with no descendants. Dana Fellows of Sterling has fixed over 100 headstones this summer alone, driven by a mission to ensure the dead are not forgotten.

It all started when Fellows found damaged tombstones of his own relatives at Round Grove Cemetery near Morrison. The elderly sexton, with a broken arm, could not keep up with the work. Fellows asked for permission to fix his family's stones and soon expanded to help others.

“I went with the approach like who's responsible for this? Why is it like this?” Fellows said. “The