PHOTO BY KRISTY GRAVER

Aside from the tombstones in the front yard, the house looks like any other suburban home.

The Paul Gropelli Memorial Co. operates out of the building on Cemetery Lane in Ross. That’s where you’ll find 93-year-old Dolores “Dee” Carioto, who’s been hand-designing monuments for her grandfather’s business since 1949.

Her life was set in stone at birth.

“I wasn’t a good student, but I loved art,” Carioto says. “My dad wanted me to work for him. I didn’t have any say-so. I was the oldest.”

PHOTO COURTESY OF PAUL GROPELLI MEMORIAL CO.

After graduating from an all-girls Catholic high school, she spent two years at Vermont’s Rock of Ages learning the family trade. The granite quarrier is the largest producer of cemetery memorials in both the United States and Canada.

Carioto held her own in the male-dominated industry, where her feminine touch was able to turn stones into sources of comfort. From delicate flowers and crosses to motorcycles and marijuana leaves, her artwork decorates the final resting places of thousands.

Chances are she designed the modest markers of my grandparents — the Gravers — who are interred across the street at Christ Our Redeemer Catholic Cemetery, formerly known as North Side Catholic Cemetery. The 165-acre site is a somber art gallery of sorts.

PHOTO BY KRISTY GRAVER

Cindy Van De Velde, Carioto’s daughter, learned how to ride her bike in the sprawling burial ground. She stops by the office a few days a week to help her brother Mark, who runs the century-old company solo after the passing of his brother, Paul, in 2023.

While he’s busy hand- and laser-etching headstones, benches and signs in the medieval-looking workshop next door, Carioto is bathed in sunlight at her massive desk.

PHOTO BY KRISTY GRAVER

The wood is worn in places and dotted with millions of pinholes from 75 years of tacking down tracing paper. She never felt the need to “upgrade” to a computer, although automated sandblasters and digital software have largely replaced the old-school tools of the trade. Paul Gropelli’s descendants are still handy with a hammer and a chisel.

PHOTO COURTESY OF PAUL GROPELLI MEMORIAL CO.

After the drawing is complete, Carioto places the translucent sheet on a piece of rubber and, using an X-ACTO knife, cuts out all of the lettering, numbers and images to create a stencil.

This grim task is done in a rather cheerful environment.

The room is bright, cozy and filled with family photographs. The television is usually tuned to a gameshow or soap opera. The irony of watching “Days of Our Lives” while designing a tombstone is not lost on Carioto, who is sweet and spritely.

PHOTO BY KRISTY GRAVER

She’s never let the sadness associated with her profession bring her down; in fact, she finds the work uplifting. Gropelli still offers free design consultations to grieving families. Carioto believes it helps with the healing process, as folks get to share photographs and stories of their loved ones. After seeing the finished product in its eternal place, they often send letters of appreciation to the artist.

“It’s not depressing because, for me, it’s life,” Carioto says. “There are tears, but if I smile, they’ll smile.”