Judy Rock of Rock's Monuments in Gibsonton, Fla., believes a gravestone should say something about a person's life. After all, she says, "it's their final statement." A former tattoo artist, Rock, 53, works in an 8-by-8-foot shed along U.S. Highway 41 in this small agricultural town south of Tampa. She uses a sand-blaster to carve the words and pictures into the 200-pound slabs of granite, applying final grace notes with a chisel and paintbrush. "The best part of this business," she says, "is seeing [the customers'] expression. The people get so happy that they often cry. Then I get teary."
Tammy Cain, 40, of Brandon, Fla., is a particularly satisfied customer. Her husband, Bill, died last September of a heart attack at age 32. Bill was a big NASCAR fan, so Rock gave him a carving of a '95 Mustang. "I look at it and think, 'He would be so ecstatic,' " says Tammy, who often picnics at the site with her two young children. "We have Happy Meals on Daddy."
Rock shows clients a 200-page book of her designs. Roses are a favorite, but she gets her share of odd requests, like the one from the relatives of a young woman who wanted only her nickname, birth and death date, plus a marijuana leaf. "I don't like drugs," says Rock, "but that's what they wanted." Then there was Torchy, a trapeze artist who divorced her husband and partner years ago. But they never got over each other. When Torchy died, she wanted to be buried beside him. Rock made her a stone with a male and female on a trapeze and the words The Show Can Now Go On.
Rock encourages her clients to be different. But then different is normal for Rock, who grew up in Gibsonton among carnival people. She was adopted at 3 months by a sideshow team billed as the "World's Strangest Married Couple. Her father, Al "the Giant" Tomaini, who died at age 50 in 1962, was 8'4" tall, while her mother, Jeanie, 83, was born without legs. The Tomainis' neighbors included the Human Blockhead (who drove large nails into his nostril), the Bearded Lady and the Monkey Girl. "Aunt Dottie was the Fat Lady," says Rock with a fond smile. "The Doll Family were tiny midgets who'd bring me high heels when I was 4."
Even so, Rock says her childhood was closer to Father Knows Best than to The Addams Family. Her father, she says, was a huge hit with her schoolmates. "He'd say, 'Come over here,' and they'd tremble," she says. "But they loved him." Al taught her to eat fire and swallow swords. He also taught her an electric act that won her an A in sixth-grade science: Judy would touch a tesla coil, which, in turn, ran a current through her body—just enough to send sparks through her fingers to ignite a torch. "I could not plot out a better childhood," says Rock. "It was when I grew up and got married that the trouble started."
In 1964, two years after dropping out of high school, Rock married a furniture salesman. The union lasted a year. In 1967, she wed a veterinarian's assistant, the father of her children Lisa, 33, and Tina, 32. In 1980, six months after her second divorce, she married fuel oil tender Ron Rock, from whom she recently parted. "I'd like to make him a stone," she says, jokingly.
Rock has always been a free spirit. For years, she worked as a waitress, hair model and marine surveyor to support her passion for stock-car racing. Once, to the mortification of then-teenage daughter Tina, she even took a stab at belly dancing. "She'd be belly dancing around with these weird costumes," Tina recalls. "I told her, 'Mom, please, you are embarrassing me.' "
She got into tattoos during the '70s and in 1989 learned tombstone artistry by trading skills with a stone carver. Depending on the design, a stone usually takes her one to two weeks and costs from $235 to $4,000. While the work would seem to be inherently sad, she focuses on the joy she brings to customers such as Aileen Roberts, whose sweetheart Charlie was a Florida transplant and lobster fisherman. Rock made him a stone with a fish that looks like Charlie the Tuna holding a sign saying, "I'm from Brooklyn."
Naturally, Rock, who lives in a cheerfully cluttered home with her dogs Taco and Q-Tip, has given some thought to her own stone. In fact, she has a poem all ready to go ("These withered hands of years gone by Engraved the stones of those who died..."). Plus, she will probably want a carving of a race car. That's just for starters. "I'll need a three-acre stone to put my life on it," she says with a laugh.
William Plummer
Grace Lim in Gibsonton
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