52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Week 22 Prompt - At The Cemetery

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

Week 22

Prompt – At The Cemetery

In Week 6 of my blog this year, I talked about Daniel Fesser – Bill's maternal 2^nd Great-grandfather. In that blog I discussed how Daniel Fesser has no real burial site and in fact may have never been buried. Daniel Fesser was estranged from his first family but that did not stop his sons from looking for his grave site. I was told that every place his sons visited throughout United States and Canada, they always made time to visit the cemetery, always hoping to find their father's grave. They never did.

As strange as not being able to ascertain where Daniel Fesser is buried is that his first wife, Karolina Fesser's cemetery is in the unlikeliest of places. 

Karolina Fesser (nee: Muller) Circa 1900

Daniel Fesser's first wife was Karolina Muller. She was born in Theodorshof, Austria on January 7, 1851. The family immigrated to Winnipeg, Canada in 1891. After a long and difficult life she died on February 19, 1932 in British Columbia, Canada and was buried at Maple Cemetery, East Arrow Park, Central Kootenay Regional District, British Columbia, Canada.

On one of my visits with Bill's mom to go through her family photos we came across the picture of Karolina Fesser's (nee Muller) headstone and grave site. It's quite a blurry photograph. 

It says: In loving Memory of our Dear Mother. Karolina Fesser. 1851 - 1932. Asleep in Jesus.

 I suggested to my mother in law that I could go out to her grave and re take the picture. She kind of chuckled and said that I would have to be a good swimmer and hold my breath for a pretty long time. I did not understand. 

Here is what I know now. The Arrow Lakes in southeastern British Columbia are situated between two mountain ranges – The Monashees and The Selkirks. They are widened areas of the Columbia River which drain down through British Columbia,  Washington and Oregon and out to the Pacific Ocean. Arrow Park was the arable land between the two. Politics and something called a Dam Treaty between the United States and Canada brought forth the building of the Hugh Keenleyside Dam, which flooded the land between the two Arrow Lakes to make one huge reservoir. 

Arrow Lake

Hugh Keenleyside Dam Arrow Lakes

The filling of Arrow Lakes Reservoir in 1969 resulted in the displacement of over 2,000 local people, impacted traditional Indigenous sites and artifacts, agricultural and forestry areas, as well as fish and wildlife habitat. No one was consulted or gave them a choice.  Bill's 2^nd Great Grandmother's grave site at Maple Cemetery, West Arrow Park is now at the bottom of the reservoir.

I went on the website Find a Grave and this is what it said about Maple Cemetery at East Arrow Park.

Plaque at Side of Road for Maple Cemetery, Arrow Lakes.

Karolina Fesser on Plaque. Note Wrong Date 1861 - 1932.

Apparently the reservoir is a great playground for tourism and boating. I guess that means the closest I get to seeing her at the cemetery is the blurry picture or take a boat ride on Arrow Lake Reservoir knowing it is somewhere below the water. Strange but true.

Wendy