We had raised lettering which could be transferred to the stencils on the materials which protected the stone during sandblasting (hand carving was another, much less frequent, operation). You had a choice of typefaces -- Baskerville, Fraktur (for some of the old-time German family groups), Hebrew, Greek, Cyrilic....

If the stone wasn't in English it had to be read and approved (in writing) just before the letters were cut in the stencil material, even if it was in German or Latin, two languages The Boss was fairly fluent in. If it was in English the inscription still had to be viewed by the purchaser before we'd continue. I remember the local Rabbi coming in to check on the stencils before they were cut into the protective material -- nice guy.