grave post - Marie-Anne Gaboury

At the Cathedral Cemetery in St Boniface is the grave site of the Lagimodière family - Jean-Baptiste and his wife Marie-Anne Gaboury. 

Jean-Baptiste was born in 1778 and would become a voyageur in the fur trade. He and Marie-Anne married in 1805 and moved to the Red River Settlement where he was a hunter and trapper and frequently acted as messenger for the Hudson's Bay Company. They had 11 children, one of whom, Julie, would marry one of their neighbours, Louis Riel Sr. In 1844, she gave birth to Louis, who would grow up to be a celebrated and controversial Metis leader.

Marie-Anne Gaboury (born 1780) was known not only as the grandmother of Louis Riel, but also as grandmother of the Red River. Many Metis can trace their ancestry back to her. From a life in domestic service to the parish priest, she and her new husband embarked on an arduous journey through Quebec, Manitoba, North Dakota and the Northwest. She was said to be the first white woman to live in western Canada. The semi-nomadic life with other French Canadian fur traders and their native wives would have been challenging and dangerous yet she lived to an impressive 95 years of age.

St Boniface and the Grey Nuns

A photographic view of the Cathedral and the Convent in St Boniface taken in 1858

The Cathedral shown above (the second church on this site) was destroyed in a fire in 1860 and was rebuilt.  A much larger cathedral (the fourth) was later built in 1906, but in 1968, it too, was destroyed in a devastating fire. Below is what is left. A much smaller and more modern (and, dare I say, less interesting) fifth church was built behind the ruins in 1972.

This convent, which housed the first group of Grey Nuns to come to the West, was constructed in the mid 1800s of white oak logs and over the years repaired and enlarged to meet changing needs. It is the oldest building still standing intact in Winnipeg and is also the largest oak log building in North America.  As a mission house, it provided facilities for the Nuns’ various works of health care, education and charity, which included caring for the aged and for orphans, treating the sick, and instructing children. It was the first institution of this kind in the west. The Grey Nuns would also travel to the Indian and Métis settlements to teach and provide medical care.  (Métis are children of First Nation mothers and Voyageur fathers. Voyageurs were French Canadians who transported furs by canoe during the fur trade.) 
The dwindling number of nuns moved out in the 1950s and, mostly in an effort to avoid demolition, was given a National Historic Site status. It has now been rehabilitated for use as a museum.

In 1844, a request was asked of the Sisters of Charity in Montreal for help with education and medical services in the Red River Settlements. Four were chosen and they undertook an arduous trip in canoes paddled by the voyageurs, lasting 58 days, travelling 1800 miles and doing 150 portages in the cold and rain, living in wet clothes, eating bad food, harassed day and night by mosquitoes, encountering snakes, and sleeping outdoors for most of the time. These were tough women!

They were Sister Marie Marguerite Eulalie Lagrave (age 38) a trained nurse and a musician; Sister Gertrude Coutlée (age 24), a teacher for the children; Sister Marie Hedwidge Lafrance (age 29), very energetic and always ready to lend a hand with any kind of work; and Sister Marie Louise Valade (age 35), a teacher and the leader of the group.

Inside, you can see some of the rooms as they would have been in the 19th century. The size of the logs is impressive.

and the interior walls, some of which are left still standing, were made of  poplar poles

There are still a few Grey Nuns living in St Boniface. They wear street clothes now, but continue to meet the needs of the community with a variety of services from hospitals, long term care and community based health care.  They created a lay organization, the Despins Charities, to help engage the community in continuing their services.  Recently  a nearby Mother House was transformed into a retirement home for some of the aging sisters (of several orders) and for the community at large.

I didn't count all the names on the markers and gravestones in the cathedral's cemetery, but there were many, including this long row of gravestones dating from 1950.

sharing with Our World Tuesday

and Travel Tuesday

and InSPIRED Sunday

grave post - Dionne and Fraser

On the south shore of the St Lawrence River, about 400 km northeast of Montreal is the small town of Kamouraska where you can find this small memorial park. 

Since 1994,  300 years after the first settlers arrived, it has been recognized as a heritage site.

Berceau translates as cradle in English and there is a rest area, a cemetery, and a memorial chapel

I was pleasantly surprised to find this slightly askew explanatory plaque in English

There is a monument dedicated to the early settlers with the names of 220 families. This seems extraordinary as there are less than 600 people living there now. I don't quite know how this works, but from the individual family gravestones many seem to have a 'family association' who have researched their genealogy and erected markers in homage to their ancestors.

Canada is a very young country and it almost felt like an honour to see a marker erected for a family who arrived here in 1698

My family is quite small. I never knew my grandparents and the rest of my mother's family (which consisted of one sister and three cousins) are scattered around Scotland and England. The Dionnes of Kamouraska had numerous descendants of the first three generations who lived here. I cannot imagine what that must be like. 
Grand-père Antoine and Grand-mère Catherine were married at ages 19 and 16, likely in France in 1660. They would have 12 children of which Jean would be their third born. Jean and his wife Marie-Charlotte would have eight children, with Jean-Baptiste being the second born. Jean-Baptiste and his wife, Marie-Madeleine would have nine children. Of all those 29 children, seven would die in infancy. There were too many cousins to continue counting.

It seems to have been a common part of life at the time to have a series of haphazardly spelled names, (as I discovered when researching another grave post from this cemetery for Kerouac) and here, John Fraser, born in Inverness, Scotland, also went by the names Jean Le Gros and Jean-Baptiste Grosjean and even Jean Phraser and Jean Fraiser. However he or his descendants (or the clerks who wrote it down) chose to spell it, John arrived here as a member of the 78th Fraser Highlanders during the Seven Years War. When they were disbanded in 1763 many of the soldiers chose to stay in Quebec. Jean/John would marry Marie-Josephe – aka Marie-Josette – Dumont on February 10th, 1777 when he was 47 years of age and Josette was 24 years of age. Things are a little murky on the genealogy site, but it seems there were two children born in 1777 – an Anastasie and a Jean-Baptiste (twins?). But, there's also listed a Pierre Fraser born 1772 (when Josette would have been 16) and a Jean-Michel Dumont whose father may or may not have been our John/Jean Fraser born 1771. Another daughter, Marie-Theotiste would be born in October of 1780, a mere two months before John/Jean died.

grave post - Keroack

Maurice-Louis-Alexandre Kérouac dit Lebrice arrived in New France between 1721-1726. He settled in Kamouraska where he married Louise Bernier and had four sons. In his new home he was a merchant trader and as he was preparing to leave for France on business was taken ill suddenly and died on 6th March, 1736.

It seems Maurice-Louis Alexander was originally known as Urban-Francois, born in Brittany. While living in England and working as a royal notary he got himself into a spot of trouble which necessitated that he leave the country after being accused of robbery and attempted rape. 

He changed his name once he settled in New France, taking on the name le Brice (also spelled le Bris), but keeping de Keroac/Keroack/Kervoach. Unfortunately, he never quite settled on one spelling. His son, Alexandre has the name  Kirouac.

One of his descendants would be Jack Kerouac, the French Canadian, American born author who's name at birth was Jean-Louis Lebris de Kérouac but is Jean Louis Kirouac on his baptismal certificate. It seems to be a family tradition.

grave post - Green

133 years ago today, during what might have been another heatwave (as it is now)

Peter Deer died of sunstroke. 

He spent his life in the Six Nations Reserve 

and lies in the Mohawk Chapel Burying Ground.

Nothing more is known about his life.

The church was built in 1786, but didn't have a resident minister until 1827. Unfortunately, all the burial records were destroyed in a fire in 1903

(plaque, erected 1984 by Her Majesty The Queen)

for signs, signs

grave post - Schlee

George Schlee
June 4 1858 - Oct 31 1944

Eva Hallman
His Wife
Aug 18 1863 - Dec 11 1944

George Schlee was one of the more active builders in Berlin (now known as Kitchener) Ontario at the turn of the century. After apprenticing as a stone mason he purchased a construction firm and became the main contractor for building imposing residences and civic buildings, including the original Kitchener-Waterloo hospital and the Walper Hotel and Zion Evangelical Church. Following a visit to the US he returned home filled with enthusiasm for the potential in the manufacturing of rubber footwear and founded the Berlin Rubber Company in 1899 and later the Berlin Button Works in 1906.

This was his house that he built in 

Kitchener

and the cottage he built in Southampton

Built in 1907 by a Swiss couple, George and Eva Schlee, the Daisy has withstood the test of time and the storms that roll in off Lake Huron.  "In 1944, Ruth Van Pelt Runyan, was strolling along the boardwalk when she noticed a for-sale sign in front of a cottage.  It opened immediately on to the sandy beach of Southampton and had a wonderful yard and veranda.  The asking price was $4,000 ... a large sum given the year, but she and her husband, decided to take the leap and purchased the cottage."  Now, 62 years later, the Runyan family is still spending summers in the Daisy.  A wrap-around veranda provides a cool breezeway on hot summer days while the interior and furnishings are reminiscent of days gone by.  "The kitchen floor has a definite slant and the wicker furniture is original," points out Marjorie Runyan, 87.  "I remember a time when the beach was all natural with beautiful sand dunes, but all that has changed.  Some politician, in his or her wisdom, decided to strip the beach of the dunes in the name of progress and now we have the eternal problem of blowing sand that fills every nook and cranny.  I studied geology when I was at university and I can't understand why the beaches are being treated this way."

(source, The Saugeen Times)

This post all started by taking a photo of this bench, and the cottage behind.

for signs,signs
and image-in-ing

grave post - Roote

the reverse side of Ruth Phyllis Roote's headstone 
at the Saugeen Village Cemetery, Saugeen First Nations

grave post - Collins

E. BURKE
COLLINS

A DEVOTED HUSBAND
A BRAVE SOLDIER
A TRUE GENEROUS FRIEND
BORN IN
BRISTOL N.Y.
MAY 30, 1842
AND ACCIDENTALLY
SHOT IN
PONCHATOULA LA
FEB.11.1872
AGED 29 YRS
8 MO.12 DAS

A MEMBER OF

THE 21st N.Y. VOL. CAV.
HE SERVED NOBLY DURING
THE WAR AND WAS DESPERATELY
WOUNDED IN DEFENSE OF 
HIS COUNTRY
HE WAS ALSO A MEMBER OF THE 
GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC
AND OF THE
MASONIC FRATERNITY

A theory about this stone's unique geometric shape is posited in "Speaking Stones" from the Rochester University. The simple decorative lines leave the powerful message of the stone's shape and words to speak for themselves without other distracting symbols. The design of this stone was, perhaps chosen by the wife of E. Burke Collins, since the largest text on the front of this stone is "My Husband". It seems obvious that she wanted this stone with its unique geometry to catch the attention of any passers by. Follow the straight side upwards to the slightly curved upper edge and continue the curve.  These lines meet to form a very conventional shape of a tablet style with a curved top. Collins' is not a complete triangular, but rather a full tablet cut off at little more than half its size, bearing a strong relation to the person whose grave this stone marks. E. Burke Collins was shot by accident when only 29 years old, scarcely more than half the life expectancy of that time.
This was a small gravestone that certainly caught my attention. I took the photos, on the fly, so to speak and was pleasantly surprised to see that it was one that was included in the Speaking Stones website, which turned out to be a course offered by the Rochester University for the Dept of Religion and Classics. The course outline almost makes me want to go back to school.

grave post - Pond

Colonel Nathan Patchen Pond was born on September 11, 1832 and enlisted as a private with the 3^rd Colored New York State Cavalry and quickly rose through the ranks to squadron commander and Major of the 1^st United States Colored Cavalry, to Lieutenant Colonel of the 2^nd United States Colored Cavalry

He was discharged after the war ended in 1865 but remained active with the G.A.R. (Grand Army of the Republic) until his death at age 88 of lobar pneumonia in 1921. His first wife, Julia Beecher Pond died at age 36 in 1887 while she and Nathan were returning home from Florida. They were on a train when she took ill and became very weak and within 30 minutes had succumbed to what was later determined to be tuberculosis. His second wife, Susan Moore Pond, died of a cerebral hemorrhage at age 84 in 1942. When Susan Pond had this monument erected in her husband's memory, Julia Pond's body was moved to this location. Both of their names along with birth and death dates are inscribed on the other side of the obelisk.

In 1870 Pond founded the Rochester Printing Company which began printing the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle and remains today as Rochester's only daily circulated newspaper.

grave post - Jarvie

In Memory Of
Robert Jarvie
Born 5th July 1816
Died At Shanghai, China
23rd August 1866
Buried Here 5th July 1867
And Of His Wife
Agnes D'arcy
Born 1st March 1835
Died 6th February 1923
Daughter Of
Andrew Bannatyne, L.L.D.
And His Wife
Margaret Millar
Of Milheugh, Blantyre.
Also Frances Mary Collins
Dear Friend And Devoted Maid

I found a notice in the Paisley Herald from the 2nd of May 1863 announcing the marriage of Robert and Agnes. Robert was a partner with a Walter Buchanan as an East India merchant and died during the financial crisis of 1865-66 when the business went belly up. Agnes seems to have spent more time living with her "dear friend and devoted maid", Frances, than her husband.

a portrait of Mrs Agnes D'Arcy Jarvie by John Gilbert Graham  c 1866

and here is a picture of the home where Agnes was born and brought up. 

A history and description can be found here