The Kintzing angel at the top of Highland Cemetery has been a remarkable sight, in spite of vandalism over the years. The worst was an attack in 1996 that left it broken and headless.

Today, 22 years later, the angel is whole again.

“The dream’s come true,” said David Wallace, the cemetery’s manager. “It’s been a long time.”

Everyone can see the the statue in its glory again, and a fun way to see it is to take the Lantern Tour of the cemetery. This year’s walking tour will be held tonight at 7:30 p.m. Park in a Lock Haven University lot, walk the relatively short distance to Akeley Lane (off North Fairview Street), pay $5, and be prepared for an hour or so of drama and local history, brought to you by volunteer actors and historical researchers. The angel will be one of the stops. Nearly majestic during the day, she is particularly intriguing at night.

The Kintzing angel at the top of Highland Cemetery was missing an arm and a foot for the past two decades

More than two decades ago, the statue was one of the victims in a wave of vandalism that saw humble markers toppled and large, decorative balls of granite knocked off obelisks and rolled downhill to leave other stones wrecked in their wake.

Vandals struck off the angel’s head and upraised arm, then threw and rolled the broken pieces.

The headless body was a desolate sight.

Fortunately, the large, detailed wings were untouched in the destruction.

There have been no arrests or definite answers, but the pieces of the angel’s arm were eventually found and stored, in a someday sort of hope that the seven-foot-tall monument might be restored.

PHOTO BY JOHN DOHERTY Robert Mosko, owner of Mosko Cemetery Monument Services, completes the restoration of the angel’s arm on site.

Another instance of good fortune came when a woman, chasing after her dog, jogged down the hill from Highland into the small cemetery just off Fourth Street, where she was thrilled to find not just her dog, but also the angel’s remarkable face reposing on the grass.

Robert N.G. Stiver, a local contractor, fetched the head and carefully placed it back in position. He was a friend to the cemetery, and he knew restoring the head would please his wife. Stiver also safeguarded pieces of the angel’s arm until the cemetery board was ready for them.

Today, to everyone’s relief, the arm is back in place, its familiar curve once again compelling the viewer to look upward.

Robert Mosko of Hanover, Pa., owner of Mosko Cemetery Monument Services, returned to Highland Cemetery this past weekend to complete the project.

He has repaired and repositioned the arm, as well as the angel’s missing foot. He also created new toes for that foot and a completely new forefinger for the angel’s right hand. The forefinger points to Heaven, delivering the statue’s silent message.

A Kintzing descendant commissioned the project. She lives in another state, but contacted Wallace about the Kintzing burial plot. When she learned about the angel, she decided to have it restored.

Wallace knew just the right artist to tap for the work.

Mosko is a professional monument conservator who worked in Highland Cemetery in 2002 and 2003. Wallace first met him as president of the cemetery board when it had the money to fix about 30 tombstones and needed a contractor who cared deeply about old cemeteries.

The various families own all the grave stones in Highland, as Wallace points out, but in some cases, descendants cannot be found. Because the cemetery was founded in 1862, it now includes a number of “orphan” stones. As stones fell over, deteriorated, or were vandalized, the beauty of this unique graveyard started to fade.

Mosko was hired to help stop the downward slide by restoring stones and also teaching Wallace the basics of simple repairs. Wallace was a motivated student and was able to pass on what he learned, starting a program in Highland that continues today.

“Due to the age of the cemetery and the lack of descendants, we knew we could make the cemetery better if we did this,” Wallace said.

The idea has turned out to be a lasting success.

Since 2002, Wallace has repaired hundreds of stones himself and has marshaled volunteers from Leadership Clinton County, Croda Inc., the Young Marines, and at least four students doing senior projects. Local residents and LHU students pitch in for the annual Park Day effort, and on that one day each year, an average of 75 to 100 stones are repaired, Wallace said.

Because Mosko was willing to share knowledge and Wallace was willing to receive it, more than 1,000 stones have been repaired in some way over the past 16 years.

Mosko clearly has a passion for his work.

According to his wife, Amanda Mosko, who also works for the family business, Robert walked past a cemetery every day to catch the high school bus and the stones made an impression on him. He also had something of a family tie – his family came from Sicily and his grandfather made his own mortars, a valuable skill in Robert’s line of work.

“I kind of did it backwards. I went into the field first, then pursued an education in it,” he said.

A former EMT, he is a graduate of the University of Maryland where he studied historic preservation and conservation. His work has taken him to Chicago, Illinois, to Florida, Georgia, and many places in the Mid-Atlantic region. He was the conservator at Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Va. for seven years. HIs projects have included a 13-foot-tall monument that required the removal and replacement of 195 pieces so he could reach and rebuild the inner core. The oldest monument he has worked on was laid in 1658, for the Ball family, relatives of George Washington.

Anyone may claim to be a professional conservator, he said, but a one-day or one-week workshop is no substitute for studying under specialists and learning how to work with the variety of materials that restoration projects require.

The Kintzing angel is made of granite, and Mosko used ground granite to create matching mortar.

Over the weekend, he carefully and precisely set in place the arm and new forefinger, the foot and its new toes, then sealed them and used his mortar to disguise the repairs. He also sealed the head in similar fashion.

Today passers-by do not notice the statue’s scars, unless they leave the road and walk directly up to it.

If they study the statue, they may note that the upraised right hand is smaller than the left hand, and the raised left foot is larger than the right. The sculptor made those choices for balance, Wallace said.

The angel presides over a number of low, matching tombstones for individual Kintzing family members. She may be 92 years old… the record is not clear. The lot was purchased in 1920. The first burial was that of George Hipple Kintzing who died in 1926 at the age of 37. His father, Reese, was president and owned shares in the Lock Haven Mausoleum Company, according to local historian Lou Bernard.

Reese Kintzing died in 1940 and his will directed that a suitable monument be created, Bernard said. Was the angel that monument, or did Reese have her erected to watch over his son’s final resting place?

There are no artist’s marks on the monument, so no one knows if the angel was created by a talented local artist whose name has been lost to time, or ordered from an outside sculptor who specialized in such fabulous creations.

Another question is whether the angel is male or female. (Or perhaps angels are neither.) The statue’s intense gaze does not reveal the answer.

She sits solidly perched on a large tomb, with its lid slightly askew, and gracefully points one finger toward Heaven. The message is clear: Do not seek the Kintzings named here. They have gone on to their reward.

Admiring her on a sunny day, Amanda remarked, “This cemetery is beautiful. It’s not dark… It has a good feel to it.”

The restored angel promotes that feeling.

And by restoring her, the Moskos have given her a secondary message: Hold onto your dream, change for the better is always possible.