In this episode, we celebrate Halloween with a walk on the spooky side! Historian and author Dr. Adam Montgomery, the creator of Canadian Cemetery History, leads us through the history of burial grounds and death rituals as we explore how cemeteries, as historical sites, have an important role to play in helping us celebrate life and shape a better future.
In this episode, we celebrate Halloween with a walk on the spooky side! Historian and author Dr. Adam Montgomery, the creator of Canadian Cemetery History, leads us through the history of burial grounds and death rituals as we explore how cemeteries, as historical sites, have an important role to play in helping us celebrate life and shape a better future.
EPISODE 4
[INTRODUCTION]
[00:00:11] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to the Halloween episode of The Open Door presented by The Brown Homestead in the heart of the beautiful Niagara Peninsula.
[00:00:27] AH: My name is Andrew Humeniuk and I am a taphophile. Unless you are one too, you probably haven't heard that term. For me it means that if I see an interesting cemetery, I have a hard time not stopping and exploring it. A tombstone tourist, some would say, but runs deeper than that. As often as not, I later find myself researching the history of the cemetery itself, or one of the more interesting headstones or engravings I came across and photographed.
Some people find that to be an odd hobby. And like any hobby, if you stick with it long enough, you'll eventually discover someone who takes it even more seriously than you do. For me, one such persons our guest, Dr. Adam Montgomery, the creator of Canadian Cemetery History. As a public history consultant, he's lectured widely about cemeteries and historic death rituals and perceptions of death and dying. Recently, he served as the head curator for the Lincoln Museum and Cultural Center's exhibit, 'Rest in Peace: Life and Death in Early Lincoln'. Even so, he remains a regular cemetery explorer, sharing his cemetery discoveries on his popular social media and YouTube channels, which I highly recommend you check out.
[INTERVIEW]
[00:01:32] AH: Welcome, Adam. It's good to see you.
[00:01:34] AM: Thanks, Andrew. Thanks for having me.
[00:01:36] AH: It's always a pleasure to talk and we always get off in some interesting tangents. We'll see where we end up today. But I guess the first thing to begin with is start at the beginning. Where did it all start for you? Can you even pinpoint where your interest in cemeteries began?
[00:01:50] AM: Yeah, that's a good question. It's kind of a tough one. I get that one a lot. And I always have difficulty answering. But essentially, if memory serves me, so when I was a kid, I always enjoyed old cemeteries even when I was young, partly because they were even then a lot of rural cemeteries were a lot of them were abandoned, or you wouldn't really see people in them generally, even if there were still relatives visiting. So they were kind of these places of mystery to me.
Growing up in the ‘80s, there were still superstitions and taboos about old cemeteries. One of them I remember as a kid, which is I think, widespread across North America and beyond was, if you're walking or driving by a cemetery, you have to hold your breath, or else the spirits might suck – your spirit might get sucked out or something. Something like that. So, they kind of had this fascination for me as places of history, but also mystery.
And then as I got older, when I became an adult, it kind of converged with my PhD studies in military history where I started wandering old cemeteries that had veterans stones mixed in with the commonwealth were gravestones. Here I am today, we're pretty much as you said, in your intro, I really can't go anywhere without stopping at an old cemetery. If there is one. When my wife Stephanie and I travel, one of the first things we're looking for is there time to stop at the city's old cemetery and wander around?
[00:03:10] AH: Fortunately, you live in in Niagara, which is a really an abundance of an older and historic cemetery. So, it's not a bad place for you to be located. But it sounds like you're looking outside of the area. You think you've covered most of Niagara at this point?
[00:03:24] AM: I think so. I mean, it's one of those – yeah, you're right. Niagara is just full, chock full of old cemeteries. Quick plug for a friend, because I think people from Niagara be interested in a lot of people don't know about it. But a friend of mine who now works for the commonwealth war graves, her name is Katherine Patterson. She wrote her dissertation at McMaster. I can't remember the date. It's available online, and it's about historic family cemeteries in Niagara. And reading her dissertation, what that really did for me was remind me of just how many places I still had to visit, and even once I read it, and have done lots of driving around Niagara, obviously and stopped at every cemetery, I haven't seen. I still talk to people where they mentioned names, and I think to myself, I'm not sure I have visited that one.
But yeah, Niagara is one of those places with the family farm cemeteries, and then eventually the church yards and then the municipal ones like it's, I would say, you really would have to have an inventory and check it off place by place to visit them all. I'm sure they're probably still some that I haven't seen.
[00:04:30] AH: Then some that hopefully will be rediscovered. Now, what you must encounter quite often is a lot of people find it all a little bit creepy. Do you find yourself having to explain or justify your area of research? And what do you say to people who will give you that look that I'm sure you've seen many times?
[00:04:46] AM: Yeah. It's funny. It really depends on the person I find. I find it's about 50/50. I'm generalizing. But I'd say about 50/50 with some people, kind of looking at me and saying, “Oh, t that's interesting.” And by interesting in their head, they mean weird, creepy or whatever. And that's the point where that comes out is interesting. But then I get other people who kind of just casually say, “Oh, yeah, they're neat places and things like that.” So really kind of depends on the person.
But I definitely have had enough people over the years say, usually, it's formed like as a question. “Why do you like to do that?” Usually raised eyebrows or furrowed eyebrows, something like that. So, I find I do have to explain myself about it to some people, but I'm not in there to sort of poke out from behind a tombstone and scare somebody. Right? So, for me, it's about the history and kind of the respect and memory of the people there.
[00:05:45] AH: And that was something you touched on earlier was the historical connection. For me, a big part of the interest ties into historical research. In your case, you mentioned you're interested in military history. I think that's something you've said to me in the past is that cemeteries are great places to make those tangible connections to history.
[00:06:05] AM: That is the thing that to me, makes them such beautiful places. In contrast, to have some people think of them as creepy, I find them beautiful in their own way, because they are these repositories. When you stand at a gravestone for somebody, particularly if it's someone prominent or famous, just because at that point, you've read about them in books, you've heard about them, people that if they were alive today, we would travel in different circles than us, would eat in different restaurants, more expensive restaurants than I could afford, or just move in different circles. There's something interesting about standing at their gravestone and kind of thinking like, they're right there, even if you're not talking about sort of like upper-class elites, if you will, like even just to me, visiting the graves of famous authors, or people who really had an impact in one way or another on culture, especially to me are fascinating.
So, when we were in Elmira, New York, we stopped at the gravestone that Mark Twain's family lot, and just something Mark Twain. He's a bit of a controversial figure now. But regardless, he had a huge impact on literature, American and European, and to just be able to sort of stand at the gravesite of this larger than life figure really kind of makes you feel in some way, like you're tangibly connected to them, even for a brief moment. And even when they're long dead too, I think it’s a different feeling than we get when we read a book.
[00:07:27] AH: Well, and that's one of the things that comes along with getting so much of our history from books is the the figures become almost characters. It is a moment, as you say, standing at someone's grave site where you really experienced them as a person. You find their humanity. That's always been a very moving thing for me. I've had a few examples of that myself. John Butler and I on the lake, being one example. His burial site has always been a very special place to me.
Now, I sometimes wonder if the discomfort that we have with death in cemeteries today, stems in part from the fact that we're much more removed from those things in modern times. And we were, for example, in the early settlement times in Niagara.
[00:08:09] AM: I would agree that I think a large part of it is that as time has gone on, we've more and more removed ourselves from death. With the rise of modern hospitals and people no longer being cared for at home, so people were physically – the actual death occurred outside of the home, as opposed to for centuries, it had happened at home. So that's one thing, that sort of physical separation. And then of course, I think culturally, we could talk about this one thing for hours, I'm sure. But to me, culturally, I think the most important is today, particularly in the West, we have this sort of fear of aging, fear of dying. We spend a lot of our time with various potions and lotions and different everything from moisturizing our skin to something like radical surgery to alter our aging face.
These express to me as sort of a fear and anxiety about about getting older and about passing away. Medicine itself, sort of intentionally and unintentionally plays a role in this because as you see a lot today with all the various technological – the amazing things we're doing with technology now, these discussions about which are not new, but they take on more salience today, because of the technology we have about what if we can stop aging? And what if we can stop dying one day? Which to me is sort of a question like the atom bomb that maybe we should really stop and think about it before we go ahead and do it. But of course, like a lot of other examples in history, people are just going ahead trying to do it without really thinking about what the implications of 8 billion or 9 billion people living forever might mean for the planet or the universe, whatever you want to say.
But all of these things are connected to me. Here we have culturally of passing away and instead of, I think people in earlier times and still in the last parts of the world think of life as a journey and death as being part of that journey, the end of that journey. Depending on if you're spiritual or religious, or whatever you want to say, a lot of people think that that's the start. Sorry, the end of this journey and the start of another journey. But a lot of people, I think, now, really just have a fear of it. And so, we we push ourselves away. Places like cemeteries, I think for a lot of people, they really become a reminder of like, “Oh, that's going to be me one day. And I really don't like the thought of that. So, I'm going to avoid that and pretend like it's never going to happen.”
[00:10:36] AH: Yeah. Maybe part of that is that we've gotten away from seeing ourselves as a link in a chain, of a community, of a family and everything is immediate. And that along with the fact that we're now, essentially, as you said, outsourcing, everything about dying makes it that much more removed. You're talking about people being cared for and dying in the home. If we go back to early Niagara. Life began and ended at home with family, and that generally included burial as well, didn't it?
[00:11:03] AM: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I think you see, especially in a place like Niagara in the settlement pattern and the way people farms were set up, some lasted a long time, and then the family moved away, or the farm was sold, et cetera. You see the traces of that, if I can kind of go off on a little tangent here. One of the most interesting things about visiting some of the municipal cemeteries, like Victoria Lawn, and St. Catherine's is when you see those stones that predate the cemetery by sometimes 20, 30 years, you're seeing those layers of history in the cemetery where the old family cemeteries, the land was sold, or whatever it was. In some cases, the families voluntarily brought the relatives because the municipal cemeteries became like the hotspots, like the trendy place to have your relatives buried.
So, people moved their relatives there, or they were moved. And that's interesting to me, because it's, it's a difference where you see that change that evolution where those people were, a lot of them were originally buried by their family members. The stone you see were professionally made and brought in. But the person themselves was often buried if it was on the farm property, probably by the family members. Being a part of it how to sacredness to it, right?
And when you see the change to the municipal cemeteries, which are beautiful in their own way, and sort of reflected different concerns and things, it's a big change in tradition that happens. I think one of the things, this will be the end of my tangent, but I think one of the interesting things about seeing that evolution is we tend to when we visit cemeteries today, myself included, I still forget, we kind of think of them as static places. It's almost like we see it, and it seems because it's so old that it's like set in stone, pardon the pun, right? When in reality, there are places that have constantly evolved as well. Stones get moved, broken, fall, whatever it is.
[00:12:55] AH: One of the things that I always find interesting, you mentioned loved ones being moved from family of burial grounds to the municipal cemeteries. But sometimes it was the stone that was moved. And the loved one maybe still back on the farm somewhere, right?
[00:13:09] AM: Yeah. That's one of those interesting mysteries, oftentimes, and I often, I can't wait for the day that ground penetrating radar becomes available to those of us that can't afford the $10,000 or whatever it is, to buy their own. Because there are these mysteries that you see like, like the ones you're talking about. And we have instances in Niagara of times where people were moved, like either the stone was moved, and not the person or the person was moved in off the stone. And people unfortunately, didn't really often record these things. They didn't necessarily write in their diary or whatever it was saying, moved so and so, kept the stone there.
So, oftentimes, there are mysteries that you have to sort of, either you shell out the big bucks, or you work with a team that has a ground penetrating radar and see if you can find that out. Or you essentially just say, “Well, I think they're there, but I'm not sure. And let's just have to be content with knowing that one way or the other, the stones still represents the memory of them, even if they're not necessarily physically there.”
[00:14:09] AH: Obviously, part of our interest, my interest in the old family burial grounds is that we have one in the Short Hills Park across the street from The Brown Homestead where a lot of the early Browns were buried and it's very interesting site and it reminds me of the the old German term for those early cemeteries. They were called God’s Acre, which comes from the German tradition and it refers not to an acre as a unit of measurement, but it's really an anglicized version of the old German word for a burial ground, Gottesacker, which means field of God, which speaks to a certain reverence, doesn't it?
[00:14:44] AM: Yeah, I think certainly that’s what you see with a lot of these old cemeteries is that there's that sacredness that people thought of and even just the idea of consecrating the ground or or de consecrating when the cemetery was moved or whatever it was. So, there was a reverence for it.
[00:15:04] AH: A reverence but also, it's reflected also in the fact that it was great caretaking in in selecting the location. They're often very picturesque, elevated places with a view. Now, you touched on the transition from the family burial plots to the community or municipal cemeteries and to what degree do you think that was a trend to address an increased population density? And to what degree do you think it reflects a cultural shift that was happening anyway?
[00:15:33] AM: Yeah, I think it's a little bit of both. Certainly, when it came to towns and cities, a lot of the concern was about health. When the church charts filled up, people were often drawing on the examples – that Canadians were drawing on the examples that they were reading about from America, and from places like Britain and France were these centuries old places had filled up. But the same thing happened in Canada with a lot of the old church yards because they essentially, in a lot of cases where the land was given to the church, and then the church would set up the the cemetery or the church yard, would have the stones, but they'd often be enclosed by various things, right? Whether it's farms, if it's rural, sometimes large farms. If it was in the city, or a town or city, you'd have buildings around, so they didn't have space to expand.
Part of it was we need more space. And I think part of it was cultural, what we now call it landscape architecture, things like that. The rural/garden cemetery movement, which perilous shows in France 1804, which was essentially an attempt to make that municipal but also, same problem in France with churchyards being full, and concerns about health. And then in the States, you have Mount Auburn, and I want to say I think it was 1831. And that becomes this place where it's not just a picturesque place to walk and stroll, but it's also even a horticultural place for horticulture. People who appreciate and study horticulture where they planted with different trees and things like that. So, it's very much a designed place, that reflects a concern to make them more pleasant.
In the Christian context, of course, to make them to sort of reflect this Victorian belief that’s changed from Puritan belief, I have this sort of doom and gloom, version of death, which was reflected in the old stones with the skull and crossbones, and things like that, to later on the language on the stones changes to things like 'only sleeping' and all the various epitaphs that are biblical passages that make reference to the fact that, “Oh, death is no big deal. I'm going up to have in one day.”
[00:17:48] AH: That is a great example of a pretty dramatic shift in the way burials were done, the approach to death and dying. And really, it was, this is very simplistic, but maybe you could expand on it, really was partially a shift towards cemeteries being public parks, almost. Places where you could picnic and visit your loved ones. Maybe you can say a bit more about that.
[00:18:09] AM: Those are, you have a situation where before public parks, cemeteries, when they created these big cemeteries, let's use Victoria Lawn again as an example, right? Set where it was, I think it was in the 1870s they extended the street railway to people so they could take it from downtown to Victoria Lawn. But at that point, it was sort of out there. That was part of the point of it was the rural cemeteries were meant to kind of separate people, they were to be these not just places of burial, but these rural places that would separate people from the hustle and bustle of what was then modern life already. The cemetery then became this sort of dual place where you could visit loved ones, take a stroll in this park like setting, and also kind of basically, mentally escape the sort of hustle and bustle of what was going on kind of over a few kilometers away sort of thing.
[00:19:09] AH: It's very interesting what you just said, because it makes me think about the context in the timing of it that this movement was happening at the same time as there was a real romanticism about pastoral living with the industrial revolution in the UK and the Victorian times and Charles Dickens and all of that. There was a pretty much an idealized notion of old agrarian British life. I wonder if this movement wasn't in part an attempt to recapture some of that.
[00:19:38] AM: Definitely, yeah. You can even see that in some of the stones themselves that the rustic stones where you see that the cross that's like a tree or the tree, the woodman of the world stones that are shaped like a tree, right? These these organizations and this sort of reflection of people wanting to recapture that rustic life that again, a lot of them probably would have grown up with. But by the time they were in adulthood had moved to the city and their families for work. And then so suddenly it was like they're remembering it, they’re remembering it and romanticizing it, because in a lot of cases, they had literally seen that shift in their lifetime.
All you need to do is look at the demographics in Canada from say, the 1870s to early 1900s. Of course, along with that the depopulation of the rural areas as people move into the city. So, a lot of this would have been this feeling of which a lot of centuries, a lot of different places all over the world, people have a sense sometimes of like, longing for times past, right? So, I think cemeteries were, in part, an attempt to recapture that.
[00:20:43] AH: Now, you've touched a couple times on the gravestones as sculptures, and one of the most distinctive things about old cemeteries that people will reference and it's in a way very particular to the movement we're talking about is the emergence of beautiful, elaborate decorative, statuesque headstones as opposed to the very simple plain ones that preceded them. So, that's something that's very interesting as well. What a lot of people don't realize is that those features are not just decorative elements. They’re symbolic, there's a language to it that's very rich with specific meaning. I know you've done a lot of work in that area as well. Maybe you can speak to that a little bit.
[00:21:20] AM: Yeah, I think, again, that's part of one of the layers of cemetery history that makes it so fascinating is that every part of the cemetery itself reflects various things. And so, the stones themselves are always a reflection of the culture and they came from.
[00:21:36] AH: Now you did a video series, a little plug here for the Niagara Fall Museum, Symbols in Stone. That one, the first couple focused on Drummond Hill Cemetery. And then later, you did Fairview Cemetery. And I encourage everyone to check us out on YouTube, we'll put the links up for those. But maybe as a little teaser, you could give us a little bit of a crash course. Someone who's on a bit of a learning curve, what are some of the main symbols they can look for? What are the some of the recurring symbols you'll see on those older headstones? And what do they mean?
[00:22:06] AM: Yeah, so I think, I'll always forget ones here when I'm asked this. So first and foremost, I think most people, one of the few, I think, that a lot of people can identify, even prior or even to not knowing anything about old cemeteries is the willow, right? You see a lot of willows, weeping willows on stones. I think the name themselves is obviously reflects what the symbolism is, a symbol of mourning. That stretches back prior to Victorian times even. Then you see, flowers are one of the big ones. Victorians loved flowers. So, you see a lot of the old idea of the British garden, which extended here in many ways, flowers are a reflection of oftentimes the age of the when the person died.
I'll preface this by saying you always have to generalize because for every 99 times you see a symbol that is a reflection of that pattern, there's always that one that's an outlier. So, you will see ones that are different than this. But essentially, if you look at a child stone, one of those small white marble child stones, you can often see a flower and the flower is carved so that the rose is wilted over, or that it’s carved so that the flowers here, but you can see one of the buds has snapped off and is now on the ground are in the process of falling to the ground. The symbolism there is a life cut short before full bloom, so to speak.
Different flowers too, mean different things. So, a calla lily often symbolizes innocence. A lot of them of course, had a meaning of resurrection because of the various biblical connections, Christian connections to them. So, calla lilies, they could symbolize marriage as well. And then you see things like oh, lilies, of course, lots of lilies, especially Easter lilies and things like that, because of the connection to Jesus, Easter, the resurrection. So, flowers are kind of everywhere.
Then you see some of the ones that really get me going, and the ones that really cause me, one of the ones I think when it comes to the symbols that really makes me want to take two-hour drives to a cemetery, I haven't been in some cases, is to look for the symbols I haven't seen or the ones that are a little more complex. Sometimes you'll see ones that are expressing a whole scene. One of my favorite types, there are a few actually. I think I mentioned in one of the videos for Drummond Hill, there are a few there still, that's like classical mourning scene on the stone where I think, if my memory serves, it’s two willows on each side, sort of as like a framing device. And then in the middle, there's a woman who's leaning on what's called a pedestal urn, mourning a stone, those are very fascinating because it's this interesting cultural expression of again, this classical studies and things like that, or classical culture, but then also, it's clearly meant to represent mourning. But you still occasionally see these very individual ones, like Victoria Lawn, there's one for a lady named Anna McKee who died in her early 30s. The husband actually had a white marble sculpture of her, statue of her, that sits atop the monument. People that have visited Victoria Lawn know it, because you can see it even from the road if you're driving slowly enough and look carefully enough. It's a representation of her. It's an effigy of her. So, that's a very fascinating –
[00:25:23] AH: Essentially, because you have that symbolism, which is both religious and cultural. And then you have, each cemetery being, I think, a phrase you've used as a snapshot of its community. You've also talked about how sometimes cemeteries were more integrated than the societies around them. There were there was a sensibility underlying some of this, that the death was an equalizer and brought people to the same level, literally, as well as figuratively. Maybe you can talk about that a little bit.
[00:25:48] AM: I think, certainly that I think, especially when you have that mood to municipal cemeteries, where oftentimes you'd have the designated church, each of the churches would get a section of the cemetery. So, you can see some division in the sense of like Catholics here and Protestants here. But then you have examples of sections that are entirely mixed, by class, by race, whatever it is. I think there was a sense, and again, you see that in the literature throughout the ages of this idea of death as an equalizer.
It's an interesting – I don't want to get too philosophical, but it's an interesting subject to think on, because it's sort of like, “Well, death is an equalizer, but at the same time for the living that continue on, that stone, or those divisions are still reflected for the surviving family.” But you do see examples where you kind of have to intuit like, “Okay, well, these people are here, because the best example, obviously, are the pauper sections of cemeteries.” One of the ones that sticks in mind to me in Niagara is Saint Vincent DePaul, the Roman Catholic cemetery in Niagara on the Lake.
A lot of tourists see that when because it's right off Queen Street. When you actually walk that cemetery, you see that section that faces Queen, where you see all the various monuments and things like that, and then even goes to the back onto Byron. But then when you see that corner, which I'm my geography, I guess that would be the northeast corner, it's very obvious. That's the pauper section, there's one stone there, and then the rest of it's just empty. Very interesting places, and that they kind of reflect both.
[00:27:22] AH: So, death being a great equalizer, and yet status remains important, even if primarily as a conceit for the living. It remains true that there was a certain shame to be bearing buried in a pauper's grave, socially speaking, and likewise, an extension of that is criminals who are often buried in unmarked or numbered graves. It was an intentional addition to their punishment, to their disgrace, to be buried that way. You can see the cultural element there as well. That's something that came up for me not long ago in my thinking, because when you understand that significance, it adds to the tragedy of, for example, the unmarked graves uncovered at the residential school sites here in Canada, to be buried in an unmarked grave like that is almost to be treated like a criminal. Takes us into some very uncomfortable, but in some important areas. You use the phrase the other day, you said history is very visceral right now.
[00:28:16] AM: This idea that people could be treated that way, even in death, it strikes at us in a way that I think is very visceral, because it brings up a lot of emotions, and it brings up a lot of, obviously, for indigenous people more than anybody else. But I think for a lot of Canadians that saw the very – again, it's important, I think, to note too, that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission noted a lot of this in 2015. It causes us to look at the way we treat people and death is often a reflection of how we treat them in life.
[00:28:48] AH: You're right. It isn't simple and we've had a little fun talking about this as a bit of a quirky hobby. But the reality is the conversations are important. The information is important. That's that's really why we're talking about today is to say there's there's something deeper and more meaningful here and more impactful, having the challenging conversations, talking about the history, and the meaning of these things and what it meant to the people who were there, it forms the basis of an essential dialogue, not just with history but about our future as a society. And that to me, is the more important part of it. You've sort of touched on that is the future.
So, to me a big question, a big destination I guess our conversation should be, what can cemeteries be moving forward? As historic and heritage sites, they're not just a place of research and remembrance, they can also be important catalysts for community development. One of my favorite examples of contemporary cemetery, you and I've talked about this is Forest Lawn in Buffalo. A large municipal cemetery but it's one that's embraced its role as a historic site and archival research center. They offer community event space for rent and venue rentals. They have trolleys tours and walking tours. One of the most significant things about that one, I'll mention because it ties back into our conversation before, one of the significant features which I find really remarkable is there's a monument there, which was originally proposed by one of the original founders of the cemetery in 1849. And it's a tribute to the indigenous people who aided the United States during the Revolutionary War. In 1885, Seneca chief Red Jacket and a number of other prominent early Haudenosaunee leaders were exhumed from cemeteries that were either in disrepair or threatened by development and were reinterred there. It's a great demonstration of respect.
[00:30:35] AM: I think what's interesting to me, in this discussion is that this example you're speaking of, which to me, is obviously a beautiful example of a way that we can sort of use actions in the present to help reflect on the past and sort of try to feel past injustices, et cetera. What's going on today in Canada with a lot of that and all over the world about monuments, there's a huge discussion of monuments, right? There have been a lot of monuments taken down. I think we are going into it. I think a lot of Canadians know the examples of the ones today, John A. McDonald, Ryerson, et cetera. Part of what I think has been lost in that whole conversation, is to me, as someone that likes old cemeteries, the way that we can do positive actions by adding monuments for people that weren't honored in life that probably should have been, and that, to me is a conversation that's getting lost in all of this anger over should it stay up, should it come down, and people are at each other's throats about it.
A lot of that energy to me, I think could be used positively to finding and or spending the money to fundraise and either redirect monuments, if the monument is now gone, or to erect a new monument to somebody who wasn't necessarily as appreciated in life who now is. Even if they're not a prominent person, just because it to me, in a lot of sense, it's the right thing to do. Why aren't communities using some energy to do positive things? To bring people together and to bring communities, various members of the community together? I think that's one way we could use cemeteries to show community spirit and again, to reflect on some of these difficult historical questions and in justices.
Again, your example of Park Lawn, those examples of cemeteries those community spaces, to me, they're a good idea. Because again, it gets people thinking of these places as places for the community, and also as a place for people to come together and learn. So, there again, are several layers to what they can play. Even if it's examples of again, I'm not sure I have the name right. But I think it's Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles where they do like the movie screenings, old movie screenings on the mausoleum wall. Things like that, to me, that's a more sort of pop culture way of doing things.
But again, I think it's interesting that it because it's a way of using these places in a different way than I think, if we can circle back to the very original, one of the first questions about this as being a creepy hobby, well, I think if you get people visiting these places, and seeing them as places to learn, it removes some of that aspect of creepiness. It becomes more a place that people think, “I can actually learn a lot from this.”
[00:33:11] AH: Yeah, and the Hollywood Forever example is one that you brought to my attention. I've looked into it because I find that very fascinating. They build themselves as a funeral home, a cemetery and a cultural event center, which says a lot. And they have their outdoor classic film screenings. Another very interesting event they have there is every November 2, they have the Los Muertos, which is the the Mexican Day of the Dead Festival, which is really a food, drink, and celebration in remembrance of the deceased. And there's music, dance arts, and ritual processions and so on. I think that's cool, because that is traditional for culturally specific, but a traditional way of observing and celebrating our ancestors. They've embraced that and do that there. I think that's really wonderful.
[00:33:56] AM: Beautiful for sure. I think that's a great example, I think, to the Day of the Dead is very – I've read some articles about how that's people are concerned in Mexico that that's now becoming commercialized because it’s now drawing a lot of a lot of non-Mexican people from the US who are now coming in and sort of seeing it as like a Halloween more of a Halloween thing and people are concerned about the way it's changing.
But regardless, I think this sort of interest in it is very positive, because it's an example of a day that acknowledges death. Part of our earlier discussion, acknowledges death as a part of life and the idea of the ancestors, one day where you visit the ancestors and the spirits are there and you're all – it’s this connection of everybody together, past and present. I think that's an interesting – again, it takes away some of that creepiness of it and acknowledges death as a part of life and I think that's a little healthy for everybody these days when we're trying to run it all the time.
[00:34:55] AH: It is healthy, and I think it's very positive too, if we incorporate into our death rituals, that sense of celebrating life. You see that inherently in the examples and I see it also too, in the example you gave earlier, about the discussion about monuments and I agree with you 100%.
Let's put more energy into lifting up and recognizing those who have been overlooked or forgotten or intentionally pushed aside and incorporate that rather than focus on knocking down those who may have been overvalued or inappropriately valued. Of course, part of my fear there is if you start to eliminate bits of history, you're doing us a disservice, you're doing everyone a disservice by trying to whitewash something. I think we have to accept the hardships in the negatives, and then bring up the positives around it. So, I agree with you 100% on that.
Now, a couple of other areas where cemeteries are part of a contemporary trend is green burials are increasing. In fact, burials in general are in decline and cremations are on the rise. But there's also a movement towards green burials, which ties in obviously, with our contemporary sensibilities around environmental considerations.
[00:36:03] AM: Yeah, I think, the green burial, I'm going to call it a movement, even though it's not necessarily one movement, just to sort of make a – for the discussion, make it easier. But the green burial movement, if you will, is very fascinating to me. And you're right, it reflects our sensibilities and understanding that I think we have that a lot of people didn't have 100 years ago, that land is finite. Even if we have a lot of land, we shouldn't necessarily be using it all for varying huge caskets and the big burial vaults that often contain them.
So again, thinking of Niagara example, Fairview Cemetery has the green burial section there. Beautiful place to walk in the summer, highly recommend it to anybody. You walk in there, and then they have one monument – oh, sorry, actually, they have four monuments in the corners. But then they have these behind them. They have these sections of field and the fields are planted all with native grasses and speak like basically native species of grasses, et cetera.
At the front, when you walk before you get in the section, there's a little sort of gateway entryway, and they have plaques on the side that explain to you, here's what you'll see here, this grass is from this part, it grows from this time to this time, et cetera. So, you walk in, and then at the back near the fence off in the distance, you see a giant willow, which I think is beautiful, because it's a new trend that's being reflected here. But there's also, symbolically, I'm not sure a lot of people necessarily make that connection. But there's this harkening back to the past there with with this willow in the background.
But then when you walk through, you see these grasses, and the people are all buried in these sections. But there's no – unless you were a family member, and you took a picture of the exact spot, you might not necessarily know where they are, but they're all there. And then when you get to the back section, while you're there, there will be like bees flying around and various, and you look at the grasses and various bugs on them and things like that. The back, they have a little bee sanctuary, where they have bee boxes at the back. There's a fence, obviously, to protect it. Because wherever it is, no matter what there's going to be someone that's going to try to tamper with it or steal it or whatever. So, they have to have a fence, unfortunately. But probably good anyway because it’s bees.
There's this bee sanctuary back there. So, you get to watch these bees flying around and doing their thing and it's beautiful, and it's in the midst of a cemetery where there are still traditional burials. But then you get into this section, and it's different, it feels different than the rest of the cemetery, you feel like you're in a different place.
[00:38:26] AH: For me, it harkens back to that notion we talked about earlier about God’s acre and usually one of the concerns is about running out of space. But something we recognize today is we need green space. We have to factor and we have to factor in green space. When I mentioned God's acre, there's a group in the UK called God's Acre Project and they recognize that not only that cemeteries are significant areas of social history, as we've talked about. But they're also important green spaces that serve as conservation places for plants and animals and so on. By continuing that, by incorporating that we can serve that purpose as well. So, it's not like that space is too precious to use a cemetery. The space is an opportunity that cemeteries can conserve our need for those green spaces as well. So, that's a great progressive example you gave and a local one, so fantastic.
[00:39:15] AM: Yeah, it's beautiful. And again, I think connected to that just quickly, the idea of cemeteries old or new as being nature spaces is something, I always try to push to people when I talk about my interest in old cemeteries. Again, my wife, Stephanie, knows a lot more about plants and trees than I do. So, she's often the one educating me in old cemeteries when we walk about what we're looking at. Going to places, Woodland cemetery in Burlington is a good example. It's a place where birdwatchers go, and it's famous in Ontario for birdwatchers. It's an example of how these places can again play dual roles or multiple roles for people as green spaces and places of memory, et cetera.
[00:39:50] AH: I want to make sure we take some time to touch on something which is a bit of a newer pursuit for you, but it ties into what we're just talking about the future, which is the preservation and restoration of headstone and monuments. I know you’ve been involved in that quite a bit lately. How did that come about?
[00:40:04] AM: I've had a lot of discussions with Jennifer Sheldon, who's the cemetery and parks coordinator for the town of Lincoln. Over the past several years, we've exchanged just sort of emails, we've had coffee a few times talking about cemeteries and I've been picking her brain because I'm always interested in the administrative side, because it's not a site I'm used to. So, I've asked her questions about that, how does this work? How does that work? What are the bylaws, et cetera? And she's asked me about the history of them, et cetera.
Then what happened is the town of Lincoln, and now has I think, it's a five-year plan with budget each year to restore some of the old cemeteries in Lincoln. There was an acknowledgment and a recognition that a lot of them are in a state of disrepair. So, they’re spreading the cost over several years to restore a lot of the old monuments, some new monuments as well. When she was looking for a contractor, Al Ernest is his name, who's the restoration specialist. She's mentioned to me one day, “Oh, you might be interested.” We've hired somebody to, or contracted somebody to do the restoration and you might find it interesting to chat with him.” So, I went out one weekend while he was doing one of his assessments in Camden. And I said, we just had like a two-hour conversation where I basically prevented him from doing as much work as he could have done.
All my questions, various stuff, but then I think he sensed that I was interested enough in it that I wanted to learn so he got in touch with me in June, I think it was or May, and said, “If you're interested, I'm happy to have you do a couple days a week or several days a week and you can learn the ropes.” I think what's been beautiful for me as a Niagaran is that working in the region that I've lived in has been just extremely rewarding work for me, because, I've now done work with him in town of Lincoln at their cemeteries and visibly seen the difference it's made very much so in a few cases.
[00:41:47] AH: Here at Saint Catharines, too, you were part of a very important project recently, where you work with historian Rochelle Bush, who's a very important voice of local black history, in conjunction with Tubman Tours Canada and the Salem Chapel. You were able to locate and document the headstone of John Lindsay. Maybe you could say a little bit about that.
[00:42:07] AM: Yeah, that's essentially your project. Rochelle and I are friends and we've had various discussions. She's attended some of my talks about old cemeteries and I've attended her talks about black history and then friendship developed. One day, we were talking and she was talking to me about – we were talking about Victoria Lawn and black history. I think it just came up where I sort of asked her like, what would you think about restoring some of these stones for some of the early church men, the BME church members and people connected to the Underground Railroad, and basically any black Canadians who came from the US or elsewhere, and immediately, she was interested, and we got talking about it.
This was back in the early spring with her being busy with being caretaker of the church and other duties, and then me being busy with work and other things, we've been doing it in different sort of chunks, where whenever there's time, basically but in the case of John Lindsay, there's an article online about him by a guy named Dann Broyld if anybody's interested to read the whole thing about his life, came out in I think, 2017 or ’18, and it's the Ontario Historical Society Journal. If memory serves, I have it printed downstairs. I don't have it in front of me.
[00:43:14] AH: We'll make sure that we post it as well. So, people can visit that article.
[00:43:19] AM: So, I won't get into his whole life. But essentially, you know, he came to Canada. He was born in 1805 in the States, he was born free, but he was later enslaved. He escaped, eventually came to Canada. It's sort of a rags to riches story, where he eventually became a prominent landowner, had a brewery, was a well-known figure in Saint Catharines. John Lindsay, when you look at the section he's buried in, in the cemetery, and he's in the same section as the St. John family obelisk, which is I want to say 25 feet tall, maybe taller.
Again, going back to the socio economics, he's buried in a section where it's a statement about his prominence in the community and his financial acumen, and his ability to afford those stones. the family's ability and the means. So, it's a chance to restore this part of history. Essentially, that's the project and we're hoping in the spring, once we've located hopefully, everybody and for those that don't have stones, we’re even looking into potentially raising the money to get monuments for those, get some small monuments for the people who don't have any. But though that's the project so we're hoping in the spring to be able to get going on the –
[00:44:25] AH: That's a great example of what we were talking about is restoring some of that history that hasn't gotten enough attention paid to it, and really, we may know John Lindsay, but we don't know enough about early black history in Saint Catharines, in Niagara, and we need to. This is a very tangible example of restoring some of that so sorts of great project for sure.
Hopefully by this point, we've encouraged a few people to take a little bit of a different approach to visiting cemeteries and to give them a little more incentive. Maybe you can give us a list of let's say three of your favorite old cemeteries here in Niagara to visit. If someone said to you, “Where can I go and see some of the stuff you're talking about?” Where are the first three you'd recommend?
[00:45:06] AM: Okay. We may get to three. That's going to be really hard.
[00:45:06] AH: It's a challenge. Yes.
[00:45:09] AM: Yeah, it's a big challenge. Geez, I think for sure Victoria Lawn. I've brought up the name many times just because it's one of Niagara’s biggest and it has monuments. Again, monuments that even predate the cemetery by a few decades that have death dates in the 1820s and 30s on them. It's still obviously in use today. I have several family members buried there. It's still a big cemetery still in use. So, it's a great chance to see this evolution of a community over at this point, closing in on 200 years and a few decades, right?
Victoria Lawn, for sure. St. Mark's in Niagara on the Lake. Definitely to me, is a strong mention, because again, because of the age. Also an interesting example of a sort of traditional British churchyard, which a lot of the church yards in Canada didn't really keep the look and feel over time because of changes to the community or changes to the place they lived, especially if they were in a place that became a city. Great place to again, the oldest stone, the oldest date on a stone there is 1794. It's for a relative of Molly Brant. Joseph Brant sister, her daughter, one of her daughters, Elizabeth Curry is buried there in the stone says 1794 on it. Great place to go to learn all about history, the history of Niagara.
The War of 1812 trenches in the – there are battlements in the cemetery still, that were in later used after the war, of War of 1812 for burial places. And then number three, oh, geez, I don't know, very, very hard. Just off the top of my head, I think Warner Cemetery is an interesting one as well. Very well-kept. Steve from Ontario Ancestors, most people still call it the OGS in Niagara. Him and his team have done a great job of keeping that in a good state. Nice clean stones. And again, stones dating from very early period. There's a stone there that nobody knows for sure if it's from that date. But there's a stone there that has a Duffy of 1786 on it. So, we're talking by Canadian standards, very old.
[00:47:11] AH: That's a great example. Because is I bet one of the better kept older cemeteries as well, which is great to see. Just very quickly, I'll throw in a couple of my favorites, one being Fonthill Cemetery. And not just because I've got about five generations of Browns buried there. But it has that great progression of history from the earliest section, which was actually the Brown Bear, ground started by John Brown Jr. He donated the land for it, that became the Fonthill Cemetery. So, the oldest part of the cemetery is the Brown Burial Ground.
Another one that I have a lot of friction for is the old section of Lakeview Cemetery, which again, started as the burial ground on the site of the German meeting house and church around 1802, which John Brown senior was one of the founding members. It was obviously later closed for burials and partly flooded when the fourth Welland Canal came through, but a really, really interesting historical cemetery.
So, for anyone listening, who is looking for a place to start, there's a bunch of good examples for you and you'll definitely find –
[00:48:08] AM: Those are some great choices. I actually thought about two of those and debating saying them. Fonthill is a great example too, a lot of stones there that tell you what the person was. There's one for, I can't remember his name, the postmaster, the former postmaster says on this stone, 'postmaster'. And then obviously, some of the old stone stones for the Brown family that are just beautiful examples of that early, very early style of monument and some are quite ornate as well. But really interesting. And as you said, Lakeview, beautiful. Interesting to see a place so close to the canal, right?
[00:48:47] AH: So, I hope we've given some people some things to think about in terms of ways of thinking differently about and experiencing cemeteries and their role moving forward, both their historical importance and their social significance. As we've said, these are important lessons for us as a culture facing various challenges. And before we go, unless anyone think that this is your only area of expertise, you right at the beginning touched on your interest in military history. So, I wanted to give you an opportunity to mention the two books that you've written, both of which deal with with psychological trauma and the impact of war. The first, if I remember correctly, the earlier one was The Invisible Injured. Yes?
[00:49:23] AM: Yeah, it's an area that I haven't been actively researching in it lately, just because that's sort of like one hobby at a time when it comes to that. So, I still read about it constantly, sort of in my own time, and certainly I'd say it's big of interest. But when I wrote those books, The Invisible Injured came out of my PhD dissertation, which was looking at psychological trauma in the Canadian military from the First World War to Afghanistan. It was published in 2017, and essentially, I tried to trace the history of this subject and how our conceptions of mental illness have changed, how we see trauma. It was a homage to my grandfather who was a second world war veteran.
I mentioned family members buried in Victoria Lawn. That’s his side of the family, several family members buried there. So, it was a homage to him and a lot of ways, because he came back from the war with a lot of demons, if you will, from his experiences in Holland and other places. But also, outside of the personal level, a chance for me to understand how using kind of the military as a as a case study of how our views of of these things have changed.
And then the second book was After the War, which was written in 2018. And I was essentially the ghost writer there in a lot of ways. It's the story of retired Lieutenant Colonel Stéphane Grenier, who's now a good friend of mine. We met while I was writing the first book because I, I researched and interviewed a lot of living Canadian veterans. I wanted to have an understanding from people still living. So, I interviewed veterans of the peacekeeping of the ‘90s, Canada was involved in a lot of peacekeeping in the ‘90s. And then I looked at people that were involved in Afghanistan, and he was actually for Canadians to know who Roméo Dallaire was, Lieutenant Colonel Grenier was Dallaire’s for a second in command during the Rwandan genocide, was there firsthand to witness it. So, he was this one person in the midst of this chaos and this terrible, terrible event, you know, it affected him and still does.
So, he has spent the rest of his life now, after he retired trying to change the way we see mental health, not just in the military context, actually, more so now, in the civilian context. That book was a chance for me to help tell his story. He said, people had said to him, "You need to write a book about your story," about his whole career and he approached me one day, and I want to say 2015, or ’16, asking me if I would do it and I immediately jumped at the chance.
[00:51:54] AH: Yeah, a very important story and a very important work, so well done by you and thank you for that.
[00:52:00] AM: Thank you.
[00:52:01] AH: Thanks for joining me today. It has been great to talk about this. As always, we end up with many things to talk about and cover a lot of ground. It makes me think I got to get out and see a few more cemeteries before winter comes.
[00:52:14] AM: Me too. Yeah, well, thanks very much for having me and I'm interested likewise, to hear about some of the work The Brown Homestead is going to be doing on the Fonthill Cemetery and various other projects, which are obviously of interest.
[00:52:27] AH: And when the leaves drop, we'll get back up to the to the first Brown burial ground again, that's on our agenda. So, we'll look forward to seeing on you there. Awesome. Have a great rest of your day. Thanks for your time and always a pleasure speaking to you.
[00:52:40] AM: Thanks, Andrew, you too.
[END OF EPISODE]
[00:52:44] ANNOUNCER: Thanks for listening. Are two guests better than one? Find out in Episode Five. Brock University professors, Michael Ripmeester and Russell Johnston join Andrew to discuss the increasingly complicated issue of memorials of war.
To learn more, or share your thoughts and show ideas, visit us at thebrownhomestead.ca. You can also connect via our social media. Or if you still like to do things the old-fashioned way, you can even email us at opendoor@thebrownhomestead.ca.
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