Dave Peterson has had a ritual for Veterans Day - he travels up north to spend the day with his grandchildren, having lunch with them then participating in their school’s Veterans Day program.

This year, however, Dave was asked to stick around and attend the Lancaster program instead.

He didn’t ask any questions, as the Vietnam veteran trusted it was important enough for them to ask him to stay, that he would stay.

At the program, Peterson was surprised with receiving the Distinguished Citizen Medal of Honor from the Fort Crawford Chapter of the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution for his works to preserve and highlight the monuments and final resting places of those that served.

The national award was given by Sandra Snow, WSDR State Regent, and Nancy Case Fairchild.

“That really made me feel good,” Peterson said when he was told to come up front and receive the ribbon and medal for the award.

Since 2019, Peterson has been working to restore and clean headstones at gravesites across Grant County. It came on after he started work on another project that has been near and dear to him, the Badger Honor Flight.

“It all began there, and who knows when it will end,” Peterson said of the Honor Flight. In 2018 he and his childhood friend, Phil Baus, traveled together to D.C. for one of the flights to the nation’s capital to see the monuments for those who served.

The pair had volunteered for service together in March 1969, and Peterson became a motivated proponent for the flights so that other veterans could have the chance at the trip like his late friend did before he passed.

Looking to honor those who came before us propelled Peterson into finding, cleaning, and repairing headstones of those who passed, especially for those veterans.

Peterson noted that while most people are focused on the moment, or the future, he focused on recognizing the past.

At first, he went to clean the headstones of his grandparents, but after following a group on social media, Peterson found out what products to use, and what not to, and techniques, and began looking around for veteran headstones to clean.

He turned next to the Civil War Monument that sits on the Grant County Courthouse square, getting permission to clean that, then raising funds to cover the costs of lighting the monument. Dave also helped get the Blue Boy statue and fountain illuminated.

He then turned to the Westwood Cemetery, next to the Presbyterian Church, where first Wisconsin Governor Nelson Dewey is buried, where a number of stones have been broken over the years.

Things took off from there. These last four years, cleaning the final markers filled Peterson with stories, not only of what he has gone through to find and clean the headstones, but also the people he has interacted with along the way.

He has worked with people in the Grant County GIS office to figure out old maps and locations of potential cemeteries and gravesites. He will go into a community, talk to the town patrolman, or residents who may know where a site may have been or is now.

For example, Peterson was looking to track down the family grave of James Pittullo, who served in the Civil War. All he had to go on was that he and his family were buried in Preston, and some basic location.

Working with Phillip Nelson and Steve Staskal, after about four hours they found the marker. Some neighbors helped with clearing the location, and the stone was cleaned and put back into placed.

Peterson worked with the DAR for a grave of a Revolutionary War veteran buried in the area. Since Dave has a relative who fought in the Revolutionary War, he felt a connection to project, and taught them how to properly clean the stone.

Dave offers showing others what he has learned on the proper way to clean and repair headstones, hoping to get more people preserving this past. He was invited to speak to children in Richland Center, and he spent the day working with them as they cleaned stones.

Along the way, at least two of the children learned they were cleaning the markers for their great grandparents.

“They will remember it forever,” Peterson said of the moment.

Quipping that he recently turned down an appointment to the State Cemetery Board because he didn’t want to annoy anyone by pushing to get more done, Peterson said he wants to keep working to preserve this history.

He is looking forward to the spring, when he hopes to be walking through some land with 90-year-old Bernita Jenkins on the hunt for a cemetery near Union, where the only things they have to guide them is Jenkins’ recollections, and an old deed description that states it’s near an oak tree.

“ They are in the cornfields, they are in the treelines,” Peterson reflected on headstones, which are throughout the countryside, and without any preservation, being taken back into nature.