52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks
Week 17 Prompt – Cemetery
Did you know that cemetery and
graveyard are two different things? A graveyard is a smaller piece
of burial land usually associated with a church. A cemetery is a
larger piece of land and not usually associated with a church. I
never knew this until a few years back.
Every time my husband and I pass a
cemetery, he says “Look, genealogy in the rough.” Indeed that is
what it is. It has basic information or maybe somewhat ironically, a
place to start. I have also found that the cemetery office staff are
among the most helpful people with some very available and surprising
information.
Several years ago my daughter moved to
Vancouver. It was always in the back of my mind that I would hunt
out my father's mother burial place. Elisabeth Peters (nee Dyck) died
in Vancouver in 1972. I know this for a fact because my mom and dad
went to Vancouver to attend her funeral and that was the first time
they had left my sister and I home alone. We were 17 and 15.
All I knew was that she died in
Vancouver and was buried in Vancouver. The first source I went to
was the online website for British Columbia, Canada, Death Index,
1872-1990. This showed me the exact date of her death as January 16,
1972. With the exact date of death I was able to order her death
certificate registration from British Columbia vital statistics.
Many things can be learned from a death registration. This is where
I found out that she was buried in Mountain View Cemetery in
Vancouver.
Jackie and I looked up the address and
planned a time to go to the cemetery. I always start in the cemetery
office. At the office I explained who I was looking for and wanted to
know where she was located. I also asked if they had any other
information about Elisabeth Peters. They gave me a copy of her
burial permit. The lady explained to me that she was a “city
case”. The burial was paid for by the city because she was a
welfare case and couldn't afford it. This fact coincided with her
death certificate where her informant was a gentleman from the
Department of Social Welfare.
Since she was a city case she was
buried in an unmarked grave. The secretary brought out the pre-
printed plot maps and showed us exactly where her grave could be
found. She told us how many steps from specific land marks to find
her plot. She also said if we could come back in a few days they
could mark it with a flag.
We found it the first time without the
flag however we came back when it was marked with the flag just to be
sure. I bought a small bunch of pink carnations and placed them on
her grave. It was more emotional than I expected. I only met her a
dozen or so times. I also think that I might have been one of the
few or the only one that placed flowers at her grave. It was
somewhat sad to think that she was buried in an unmarked grave where
no one except her family would know. She was anonymous. Her life
gave birth to my father who gave life to me. She shouldn't be an
unknown plot number in a Vancouver Cemetery.
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| Standing at Elisabeth Peters Unmarked Grave |
RIP GRANDMA
Elisabeth Peters (nee Dyck)
11 Jan 1881 – 16 Jan 1972
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| Placing Pink Carnations on Her Grave |
Wendy
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