Nancy Millar is known as Canada's Cheerful Tombstone Tourist. She's traveled all over the country exploring graveyards and talking to people, the result of which is Once Upon A Tomb, a history of Canada from the back end, as it were. It's history as she found it in graveyards.

Mystery Veteran?

by Nancy Millar

In the spring of 1995, I finished my cross-country graveyard explorations in British Columbia and then went directly to Saskatchewan. Nothing wrong with Alberta, you understand. It was just that I'd been there, done that. Truth is - I had already explored Alberta.

In the early 1990's, I was writing a weekly column for the Calgary Herald. Every now and then when I tired of politics and social trends and other worldly subjects, I'd trot out to a graveyard and write about it instead. I worried that folk would find it morbid or scary so I wrote carefully, cheerfully, as is my wont and lo behold, the response was positive. I had lots of phone calls from people saying… I like graveyards too, and have you been to this one or that one? In fact I built up quite a file of 'Places To Go'. Eventually, it occurred to me that this might be another way to write about Canadian history. Instead of re-writing material that had already been done well by authors like James Gray and Grant MacEwan, why not start from the graveyard and work backwards, as it were?

That's when I began exploring Alberta graveyards. At first, I was enormously disappointed. Albertans don't say much on their gravemarkers. We are strong, silent folk, not given to mush or high praise. Also, we are young in Alberta, not even 100 years old as a province yet, so we came along after the days of wine and roses when words and praise were heaped upon marble. Day after day, I'd stand in front of the gravemarker of some notable who might have been expected to have hints about his or her life, but nothing. Maybe "Ever Loved, Ever Remembered" which is Alberta's favorite epitaph but not much more.

Gradually, however, I learned to "read" the gravestones. the stories are there but you have to winkle them out. For instance, in the northern Alberta town of High Prairie is a modest black granite marker with these words on it:

"In Loving Memory of Peter Tomkins
Born Dec. 10, 1873
Died Jan. 21, 1940
Veteran 1885 Rebellion."

I was delighted to find the mention of the North West Rebellion. That alone made my trip to High Prairie worth it. But then I did the arithmetic. Peter would have been 12 years old at the time of the rebellion. How did that make him a veteran?

It was a great story once I unraveled it. Turns out the birth date is wrong by some 7 or 8 years. Peter Tomkins was old enough in 1885 to be out repairing telegraph lines around Batoche, SK. When Riel's men realized he was working on behalf of the government forces, trying to reestablish contact with Regina, they took him prisoner. For the last few weeks of that confusing but pivotal battle in Canadian history, Peter Tomkins languished in a crude prison, mad as an old wet hen, so mad that he readily agreed to testify against Louis Riel at his trial later that year. The trial ended in prompt execution for Riel.

Tomkins changed his mind many years later. In some papers at Glenbow Museum in Calgary, I found a note that he had written to his son. Part of it said, "They should never have hanged Riel. He never did anything worse than a good Union man would do to his group, and someday they'll build a monument."

Imagine - all that important and compelling information form one small gravemarker in one small town. That's when I quit complaining and realized I'd have to take the quiet hints presented to me and do the rest of the work myself. I had, I suppose, learned to "read between the lines."

On the banks of the Peace River near Dunvegan in northern Alberta is a little grave surrounded by a white picket fence. It's all by itself and if you'll excuse a bit of mushiness from an Albertan, it is the loveliest thing - a little white box alone among the northern poplars, no houses nearby, no people, only a river running by. Inside the box is a hand painted sign that says:

"In loving memory of Caroline
Infant daughter of Alfred and Agnes Garrioch
Who died April 20, 1888, aged 2 days
Forever with the Lord."

Once I read the sign, I put the words together with the setting and decided the Garriochs were likely missionaries. Likely there were no doctors around in this remote spot in 1888. Likely the family soon left the north. All true. When I researched deeper, I found out the the Garriochs had been one of three families in that valley, the other two being the Hudson's Bay trader and the Catholic priest. Neither was able to help Agnes nor new baby Caroline. All Rev. Garrioch could do when he and his wife left the north was build a fence around Caroline's last resting place to keep her safe from wild animals.

And there she remains, a heart stopping reminder of another time, another story.

Scratch a Canadian and you'll eventually get down to a story of immigration, except for the native Canadians and even they, some archeologists say, came from elsewhere. Doesn't matter. The point is that immigration is told everywhere in our graveyards, sometimes stated directly, as in "Native of Denmark" or some such explanation. But more often than not, it has to be figured out. I began keeping track, for example, of the different languages, I found on Albertan gravemarkers. With pictures in hand, I consulted a linguist at the university who identified some 36 distinct language groups, but those 36 language groups were in the front lines of the graveyard only. As time passed and second and third generations were buried, the language became English. It's the story in stone of immigration and integration, the story of the west.

The natives were not nearly as keen on immigration, of course. It changed everything for them. Chief Crowfoot died in 1890 at a time when life for Indians was a little bit Christian, a little bit traditional and a whole lot confusing. He was right on the cusp between old and new, and that tension coloured everything that happened around his death. For instance, the Catholic priest declared that Crowfoot had been baptized in the faith and should therefore have a full Catholic funeral. The Anglican minister J.W. Tims wasn't so sure about that and said, "Crowfoot died as he had lived in the faith of his father." The Indian agent weighed in with the direction that the casket should be completely buried. The Blackfoot people wanted it to remain above ground so that his spirit would be free to join the ancestors. And so on.

How to break such a cultural and religious impasse? Compromise, of course. The casket in the Cluny cemetery was left half in and half out of the ground for years, covered with a spirit house, but in recent years, it's been buried completely. The gravemarker is modest; it just says "Father of our People."

In a lovely piece of contradiction, it turns out that cowboys - those most strong and silent of all Albertans - are the ones most likely to have words and praise upon their tombstones. Go figure. This is the Cowboy's Prayer which more and more appears in ranching areas of Alberta:

"Heavenly Father, we pause, mindful
Of the many blessings you have bestowed upon us.
We ask that You be with us at this rodeo/ And we pray that you will guide us in the arena of life.
Help us, Lord, to live our lives in such a manner
That when we make the last inevitable ride
To the country up there where the grass grows
Lush green and stirrup high
And the water runs cool and clear and deep
That you, as our fast judge, will tell us
That our entry fees are paid."

Another lovely piece of contradiction is the epitaph on Harriet Elizabeth Connell's grave in the Okotoks cemetery. Women, as a rule, don't get many words on their markers - "Mother" and "Wife Of" are about as many words as are allowed. And certainly, there's no nonsense on women's or men's graves. But here's what Elizabeth says:

"Weep not for me now
Weep for me never
For I'm going to do
Nothing for ever and ever."

Turns out it's an old favorite known as the Tired Woman's epitaph.

And finally, here's my nomination for the most Albertan of all epitaphs. It belongs to Hulbert (Hullie) Henry Orser in the Earlville Rutherford cemetery on the edge of a field near Ponoka:

"He feared God, did nothing mean
Shot straight and stayed clean."

If that isn't Albertan, I don't know what is.

As for the best overall graveyard in Alberta? The old one in Banff, close to downtown at the foot of Sulphur Mountain. It's full of character and characters. Don't miss it.

Nancy Millar's books about graveyards include Remember Me As You Pass By, (stories from Alberta graveyards) and Once Upon A Tomb (stories from Canadian graveyards.) Both are a combination of history, story and travel. They are available from many bookstores, see the Links provided, or from Deadwood Distribution, e-mail nemillar@telusplanet.net. Her other books include Once Upon A Wedding - Canadian history through actual weddings; The Famous Five: Emily Murphy and the Case of the Missing Persons, and Once Upon An Outhouse. Also available from Deadwood or link with www.nancymillar.com.

This story, with permission from the author, Nancy Millar, was supplied to us by Canadian Funeral News, a magazine dedicated to the advancement of funeral service in Canada and is published 12 times per year by OT Communications. Suite 1025, 101-6th Ave. SW Calgary, AB, T2P 3P4 Tel: 403-264-3270 Fax: 403-264-3276