Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Westbank, British Columbia Cemetery Photographs Now On-line

The Kelowna and District Genealogical Society has just published photographs of gravemarkers at Westbank Cemetery in Westbank in the Thompson-Okanagan region of British Columbia, Canada. Special credit is given to Margaret and Peter Knoess for their work on this project which was finished in summer 2008.

These photographs are on the Canadian Gravemarker Gallery website hosted by Murray Pletsch who is now well known among Canadian genealogists.

The gravestone photographs are indexed by surname. There are four 'unknown's shown from this cemetery - listed under U. The Gravemarker Galley doesn't allow for additional information or comments on individual photographs, as some other sites do.

One of the unknown photographs has no identification, one shows a photograph on the marker, one shows a cross that says 'Chris', another shows a broken gravestone: " In Loving Memory Olive Ethel ___TT __ 9? _____955

Could this be for Olive Ethel Hewlett, whose death was registered as at Kamloops, B.C., 7 November, 1955?

The Kelowna and District Genealogical Society has other publications available on cemeteries from the area. All are reasonably priced. Click the 'Publications' tab on the KDGS website for more information or contact the KDGS Cemetery Recording Committee.

LINKS

Westbank Cemetery, Westbank, Canadian Gravemarker Gallery: http://www.gravemarkers.ca/british/okanagan/westbank/index.htm

Kelowna and District Genealogical Society: http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~bckdgs/index.html

UPDATE: I did look up the death registration for Olive Ethel HEWLETT. She was born in Kelowna, had lived in Kamloops for 12 years, and was to be buried in the Westbank Cemetery. She died the 7 November 1955. The date of removal on the registration was 9 November 1955. Her father, the registration informant, was William Henry Hewlett, her mother Ethel Baskerville Perkin Hewlett. It appears that they are both also buried in Westbank Cemetery. See the other Hewlett grave marker photographs.

Monday, November 24, 2008

Searching for Hidden or Forgotten Burials - with 21st century tools

University of British Columbia Reports (Vancouver, B.C., Canada) has an interesting article this month about the use of a new ground penetrating radar device last summer in an archaeological field school pilot project to detect 'lost' burials in local First Nations cemeteries. This device can 'see' 5 metres down, allows for non-destructive surveys, and is ideal for use in urban spaces. Already new temporary burial markers have been erected at the Kwantlen First Nation cemetery in Maple Ridge, British Columbia.

"Finding the Lost: Ground Penetrating Radar Helps First Nations Honour Ancestors", by Basil Waugh, UBC Reports, 6 November, 2008: http://www.publicaffairs.ubc.ca/ubcreports/2008/08nov06/lost.html

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

We Will Remember Them, 11 November, 2008

Commonwealth War Graves Commission area, Mountain View Cemetery, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. October 2008

We will remember them.

The Canadian Virtual War Memorial, with links to individual war graves: http://www.vac-acc.gc.ca/remembers/sub.cfm?source=collections/virtualmem

Commonwealth War Graves Commission website: http://www.cwgc.org/

Mountain View Cemetery, Renovation of Commonwealth War Grave areas, 2004: http://vancouver.ca/commsvcs/nonmarketoperations/mountainview/military/improvements.htm


Saturday, November 8, 2008

This Month's Quote - Free Death Notices, 1910 - Abbotsford Post

Abbotsford Post, 3 June 1910, British Columbia, Canada, p. 2


We do not charge for publishing births, because we like to see parents happy; we don't charge for publishing weddings...; we publish the notices of death free of charge because when we die we want our friends far and near to know that such a fair fellow has departed this life, and we don't expect we shall ever leave enough to have such notice paid for - unless we make it in the newspaper business.

Saturday, November 1, 2008

More about A Night For All Souls, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

A few days ago, Douglas Todd, the 'spirituality and ethics' writer for the Vancouver Sun newspaper wrote a good article about the Night For All Souls event this year at Mountain View Cemetery in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. I thought some of my readers would be interested to read this at his blog:
http://communities.canada.com/vancouversun/blogs/thesearch/archive/2008/10/27/vancouver-cemetery-hosts-the-night-for-all-souls.aspx

Sunday, October 26, 2008

A Night For All Souls, Mountain View Cemetery, Vancouver, B.C., October 2008




Mountain View Cemetery, 25 October, 2008, Vancouver, B.C.



Yesterday was a beautiful fall day in Vancouver, British Columbia, perfect weather for the 'A Night for All Souls' event at Mountain View Cemetery. I thought I'd post a few photographs to show something about it.

Mountain View Cemetery opened in 1887. It's not the oldest cemetery in this area, but it is certainly the largest. Today it's 105 acres with about 100,000 burials. In recent years, there have been many changes - the most obvious now the construction of new offices and columbaria, the Commonwealth War Grave Commission's upgrading of its areas and the City and the Last Post Fund's construction of 13 monuments to commemorate the almost 1,000 'known' unmarked veteran's graves at Mountain View. Perhaps more about these projects another time.

Perhaps the most successful addition is the new 'infants burial' stream bed - every rock symbolizing a burial. (These were all in common graves.) One of the 'All Souls' shrines was right beside this area.


















Link:

'One Stone for Every Infant', Infant Area Project, Mountain View Cemetery, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada: http://vancouver.ca/commsvcs/NONMARKETOPERATIONS/MOUNTAINVIEW/projects/childrensarea.htm


Tuesday, October 21, 2008

A Night For All Souls - October 25, 2008 -Mountain View Cemetery - Vancouver, BC, Canada

See my other post about this event: A Night for All Souls - Mountain View Cemetery, Vancouver, B.C., Canada

The 'Night for All Souls' event at Mountain View Cemetery in Vancouver, British Columbia is a newer tradition for the city - a special time to honour the dead with art and music, and with offerings of candles and lanterns, flowers, personal memorials and thought.

Paula Jardine is Mountain View's 'artist in residence' and she began 'A Night for All Souls' in 2005. She creates events like this which blend art, music and dance with community and purpose and she was the founding artistic director of the Public Dreams Society.

This year, A Night for All Souls at Mountain View in Vancouver is October 25, 2008 from 6 to 10 pm.

"It will be a family friendly sanctuary of beauty for tender feelings, with fires to warm us, music to uplift us, tea to refresh us and materials to create personal memorials for our dead." There are workshops during October so that people can fashion particular kinds of offerings or memorials, if they like.

After 'All Souls', from October 26 to November 2nd, artists will be at the cemetery each evening and there will be opportunities for smaller, more informal gatherings each night.

LINKS

A Night for All Souls, Mountain View Cemetery: http://vancouver.ca/commsvcs/NONMARKETOPERATIONS/MOUNTAINVIEW/allsouls/index.htm

Paula Jardine, artist: http://islandsinstitute.com/gallery/Jardine/frontpage.htm

Monday, October 20, 2008

Wordless Monday - Lillie Hornkoist 1910 - Merritt, British Columbia

Nellie Hornkoist - 1910
Cemetery at Merritt, British Columbia, Canada
taken September 28, 2008