Markers of a somber boom

BARRE, Vt. -- Most of the time, the stone slabs that roll down the production line at Granite Industries of Vermont bear the names of World War II veterans: a lieutenant born in 1916; a sergeant born in 1921; a colonel born in 1925.

But every few days, the men who work the line inside this cavernous monument factory see a different sort of headstone emerge from the sandblasting station, bound for a fresh grave in a veterans' cemetery. The names of still-unfinished wars are carved into the stones: Operation Iraqi Freedom, Operation Enduring Freedom. The dates of birth on these slabs are jarringly recent: 1981, 1982.

Barre has long known the somber prosperity of wartime. It was the Civil War, with its massive casualties and vast demand for funeral statuary, that jump-started the great boom in the stone industry of this small Vermont city.

Another stretch of steady business has unfolded in recent years at Granite Industries, one of a handful of suppliers of veterans' headstones for national cemeteries. The latest upswing is largely the result of the accelerating death rate of aging World War II veterans, but also reflects mounting losses in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The company turns out more than 100 gravestones for veterans every day, at a sprawling plant at the end of a woodsy, gravel-tossed road, close by a slender branch of the Winooski River. Its 50 workers say they take pride in crafting the veterans' markers.

"I know I'm not out there serving my country, but at least I'm doing something that needs to be done for my country," said Jared Despault, 26, who wore fluorescent foam earplugs and marble-dusted work boots as he manned the sandblasting equipment Friday afternoon.

In this central Vermont city of 9,000 people, located 6 miles from the capital, Montpelier, nearly every family has ties to a proud tradition of stone work.

Evidence of that heritage is everywhere. Old black-and-white photos of the quarries hang on the walls at the McDonald's restaurant .

A modest Main Street strip mall, anchored by a Domino's pizza shop, is graced with a hefty granite sign out front, carved with the name Commercial Plaza.

Barre's geologic good fortune runs deep. It is home to a rich deposit of sapphire-hard granite, valued for its fine grain and elegant gray color, that stretches 4 miles long and 10 miles deep -- a supply that will last for centuries, said Todd Paton, director of visitor services at the massive Rock of Ages quarry.

At Granite Industries, where the contract with the federal government makes up one-third of the business, employees speak with quiet reverence for their work.

"You want them, when the families go up there to say their piece, to see the country cares about what happens to their soldiers," said Robert McCallum, 38, a production line worker and a member of the US Army Reserve who served for a year in Kuwait at the start of the Iraq war.

As the production of headstones has increased, deadlines have tightened, said Jeff Martel, owner of Granite Industries. The government used to give the company a month to complete orders. But now, it has just 10 days to deliver finished stones to sites across the country, including Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, Great Lakes National Cemetery in Michigan, and Calverton National Cemetery in Long Island, N.Y., the largest in the country, at 1,045 acres.

Most gravestones in national cemeteries are made of marble, which is softer than the granite that put Barre on the map. The marble comes to Granite Industries from Danby, 90 miles to the south, and arrives in blocks of 25 to 40 tons.

Workers operating huge circular saws tipped with man-made diamonds cut the slabs into slices until they become stacks of identical, 4-inch-thick, 230-pound rectangles.

Inside the factory, machines hoist stone slabs in slings, and water cascades down the roaring saw blades, raising mist.

Workers inspect each stone tablet and scrap the slabs that show flaws.

Across the rocky parking lot, country music blares in the office where Linda Beaudin, manager of the line that makes the headstones, types names and dates into her computer from a thick nest of yellow order slips on her desk.

On Friday morning, she paused over some of the entries: Colby J. Umbrell, born in 1981, died on May 3; Matthew Bolar, born a year later, died the same day.

"Most of them go to Arlington," she said of the veterans' headstones. "I've always wanted to go there, but I've never been."

Two photocopies hang on her office wall, showing the headstone for Caspar Weinberger, former secretary of defense, and that of Paul Ray Smith, the first US soldier killed in Iraq to receive the Medal of Honor. Both markers were made here.

Beaudin is not sure how many of her neighbors are aware of the small role the local company plays in national affairs. "When I go to bingo or play cards with the girls, they don't have any idea," she said.

Beaudin taps her keyboard to send orders to a stencil-cutting machine, which spews out sticky rubber mats imprinted with inscriptions for each stone.

With a hooked knife, she pulls off letters and numbers, leaving holes in the mat for each one.

Then a worker affixes each stencil to a blank stone.

The final transformation from blank slab into gravestone comes at the end of the line, when the headstones travel on rollers through the blasting station. A compressor blasts abrasive aluminum oxide -- a black, crushed rock -- through the stencil to engrave each veteran's name: Joseph Mancuso, Richard Friedman, Victor Haller King.

On Friday afternoon, work stopped early for the Memorial Day weekend. The men filed out, and the floor went dark.

The row of marble slabs stood side by side like soldiers, waiting for the line to roar to life on Tuesday morning.

Jenna Russell can be reached at jrussell@globe.com.