Uvalde monument company offers free headstones for victims of the Texas school shooting

‘We sit here and cry together,’ Laguna Monument Company owner Shirley Welch tells The Independent

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Ten minutes from Robb Elementary School, the owners of a local monument company were steeling themselves on Friday for the upcoming onslaught of headstone requests.

Shirley Welch, who owns Laguna Monument Company with her husband, Billy, told The Independent that the company would be providing stones for free to the grieving families of 21 victims killed in Tuesday’s school shooting in Uvalde, Texas.

“It’s extremely difficult,” Ms Welch, her voice full of emotion, said less than 72 hours after the tragic massacre of 19 children and two teachers. “This morning has been a little bit harder. I have not met with the families yet.

“I have sold several children’s headstones in the past, and we sit here and cry together. It’s extremely painful.”

The company had received a large donation from the city, she said, to help with the stones and supplier payments.

While some families arrive soon after deaths to order headstones, she said, she felt it would take the children’s parents some time to make up their minds and gather the strength to choose the stones.

“I feel sure that the families – because this is such a tragedy – I feel like it’s going to take a little bit of time for them to come to terms with it,” she said. “And because the stone is so final, we really don’t want them coming in so soon that they don’t know what they want because I don’t want them to have regrets later.”

In addition, she said, plans were already underway for a memorial monument in Uvalde. She and her husband were heading to the bank Friday to set up the Laguna Monument Memorial Fund.

“Once things settle down, we want to be able to put some type of big memorial somewhere in town for these children,” she said.

As the town struggles to pick up the pieces from the horrifying attack, law enforcement is facing mounting questions over why it took so long to take down the shooter, Salvador Ramos.