Making That Final Statement : Death: As people visit cemeteries for Memorial Day to remember their loved ones, many will be viewing the work of Ugo Ojetti, who has been making tombstones for 45 years.

Ugo Ojetti has spent 45 years giving people the last word on death.

Carved in granite, it is a chance for people to immortalize a last message to the world, about themselves and the ones they love.

The 75-year-old Ojetti and his grandson, Greg Wheeler, operate the largest and one of the oldest tombstone carving companies in San Diego County, manufacturing more than 3,000 “memorial tablets” a year.

And Memorial Day weekend is their busiest time, sort of like what July 4 is to pyrotechnicians.

Through his wire-rimmed glasses, Ojetti has seen thousands of people come through his office bearing the burden of a deceased loved one.

“All kinds of people handle death differently. Some people sit down and joke about it, and it doesn’t affect them at all. For others, you’d better have a couple of boxes of Kleenex handy,” Ojetti said in his gravelly voice.

“A lot depends on the age of the person who died. I know a lot of people who passed away at an older age, and the children or wife comes in, and they have thought about it a lot, and they are more prepared for it,” he said. “But when it’s young people, then it is a different situation, and it hits them pretty hard.”

In 1946, Ojetti had just emerged from serving in the Marine Corps during World War II when he went to work for Conti & Son, who had been family friends. After 19 years of cutting rubber stencils and sandblasting his clients’ last words into granite, he bought half the firm, and in 1975 he bought the rest. Now, Ojetti and Wheeler run the monument outfit off Imperial Avenue in San Diego.

“For us, it’s a final statement on someone’s life. It’s not just a piece of stone with someone’s name and dates on it,” Wheeler said.

Every aspect of a person’s tombstone, from the shade of granite to the font of the lettering, helps tell what kind of person the dead person was, Wheeler said.

“You’re not putting it up for the person who passed away, you are putting it up for yourself. You really do it for your own feelings,” Ojetti said.

In his 45 years in the business, Ojetti has made hundreds of thousands of tombstones, but he said he has not given much thought to his own.

“I’m going to live a long, long time,” he said with the laugh of a person that has no intention of slowing down.

And he hopes to change with those times by escorting in the computer age with a sophisticated stenciling machine that can do the work of several people.

“I don’t like to stand in the way of progress or sit still,” said Ojetti, who was the first in the county to get such a machine, which lines up the letters on a tombstone.

Although technology for carving the “granite memorials” is advancing, in other ways, such as tombstone design and sophistication, the West Coast has been backward, Ojetti said.

Although cemeteries east of the Mississippi River have traditionally allowed monolith-sized monuments to honor deceased loved ones, cemeteries on the West Coast, particularly in Southern California, have had strict rules regulating the size of tombstones, with some only allowing flat tomb markers.

“Instead of having the man-hours of trimming around each marker, on the flat markers we have a machine that can edge it, and the lawn mower can just go over the whole thing,” said Ray Snider, director of family services at Greenwood Memorial Park and Mortuary, one of the largest cemeteries in the county.

Of the 27 areas where burial plots are available at Greenwood, only two allow upright markers, while the remaining 25 are reserved for flat markers, Snider said.

“The advantage is for maintenance and upkeep, and it makes it look a lot nicer. Instead of looking like a cemetery, it looks more like a community park or something,” Snider said.

Many cemeteries also forbid the use of porcelain portraits on tombstones because they are easily broken by vandals.

But the rigid restrictions on tombstones by cemeteries have some monument makers upset that the last form of expression available to a person is being taken away. “When people walk through cemeteries, they look at monuments and the design, and they need monuments. There’s nothing with a flat marker,” Ojetti said.

Other monument makers agree.

“Flat markers make for a lovely park, but not a very interesting cemetery,” said Doris Console of the Pyramid Granite Co. in Escondido.

Changing times also have influenced the way society views the purpose of monuments, monument builders say.

“Forty or 50 years ago, people bought monuments that really depicted their lifestyles, families and so on,” said John Dianis, executive vice president of the Monument Builders of North America, the largest industry association in the country. It is based in Evanston, Ill.

“Back then, people spent many more hours and days in the cemetery, and it was a weekly ritual to go to the cemetery with their families,” Dianis said.

“A monument depicts the person’s life, and is also a comfort to the living because there is a place where they can go and pay their respects and do some grieving,” Dianis said.

The sentiment of honoring the deceased with elaborate tombstones went out the window in the 1960s, Dianis said, but now it’s making a comeback.

“Nationwide, we see a great deal of personalization, with people putting on their life histories on their monument, what their jobs were or interests were,” Dianis said.

Monument manufacturers in the county say that recently there has been a growing demand for custom designs in tombstones after decades of bland, standard styles.

“In the last two years, people have become more sophisticated and artistic when it comes to these sorts of things. Life goes so, so fast, it seems that people are grasping onto something to make life more significant,” Console said.

Monument makers boast that they can produce any design requested by their customers, everything from an airplane to the Golden Gate Bridge to a surfer’s wave. Prices range from about $300 for the most simple flat marker to as much as $6,000 for elaborate upright monuments.

People often wait from one month to a year before purchasing a headstone, and Memorial Day is the catalyst to buy a monument for many who feel they need a place to go to remember their loved ones, Console said.

“Very rarely will people come in right from a funeral to buy a monument. It’s better if a little time passes because that way they can think more clearly, and they’re not as emotionally distraught,” she said.

“At first, when a customer comes in we try to get a feeling for what the person was like. Many of them want to say something about how they feel about the person who died,” Console said.

Most say it is best for people to wait a few months to a year after the death before they buy a tombstone.

“The decisions that have to be made at the time of need are too many for a recently bereaved person to take on,” said Frankie Clemens, who, with her husband and daughter, run the oldest tombstone carving business in the county.

“I am constantly amazed at the strength these people have after having lost a life,” Clemens said. “They apologize for asking simple questions, and they ask if they are taking up too much time. It’s a very rewarding business.”