Editorially speaking…
It occurs to me that Chronicles readers who don’t follow me on Facebook (T.W. Paterson History Author) might enjoy these recent posts of a visit to the Nanaimo Cemetery. I didn’t find the headstone I was looking for, but was intrigued by these three:
Alfred Ostling
I remember the two elderly ladies in the back row so well. As entertainment convenor for the Cowichan Historical Society, it was my job to find speakers for the monthly meetings in the Duncan railway station/museum.
This time, the forthcoming speaker was to be me, and I announced that I was going to give a virtual tour of a local cemetery.
Eeeeuu--you’d have thought that these ladies had swallowed a lemon, they found the very idea of a cemetery to be so morbid.
I’ve been been haunting (ha ha) cemeteries since I was a kid and I’d like a loonie for every headstone I’ve photographed and researched. Grave markers really do speak to you—after all, isn’t that what they’re there for, why they’re inscribed?
Such as this one for Alfred Ostling:
ALFRED OSTLING
A native of Sweden
Died
from injuries received by
accidentally falling into
the hold of S.S. Wellington
April 12, 1890
Aged 25 years
Erected
by the Officers and Crews
Steamer Wellington and Costa Rica
But for a brief mention in the newspaper and his old headstone, poor Alfred would be forgotten—almost as if he’d never existed. Instead, he’s another fascinating tale from the tombstones.
And, by all appearances, those old ladies did enjoy my talk in spite of themselves.
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Walter Day
Another heartbreaker in the Nanaimo Cemetery, this headstone for Walter Day, killed at Departure Bay, Dec. 22, 1911, aged 17.
“A loving son missed by all his friends. Gone but not forgotten.”
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Lisse, Earl Rowan
Not every headstone is, well, sad. Like this one for Lisse and Earl Mason: SEE YA LATER ALLIGATOR
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Levity(?) aside, this touching comment from Bernard Simpson:
“Thank you Mr. Paterson... My namesake was killed in WW2 (France) and only our middle names are different. Although he is interred at Brookwood Military Cemetery in England, and was born in Ontario, Canada, I am trying to keep this part of HISTORY alive in British Columbia.
“I have bought Two (2) plots in our cemetery; one is mine the other is for him in memorandum. I can only hope it makes people think when they see his name and to think about HISTORY and how we got here.”
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The century-old CNR trestle at Holt Creek on today’s Trans Canada Trail is gone, the demolition process having been just completed to make way for a new and soulless (but oh, so much more practical) replacement span of concrete and steel instead of first-growth timbers and historical context.
Ah, well, there’s no stopping progress, eh?
But you’re in luck! You can buy pieces of it: solid steel girders to frame that garage or gazebo you’ve been planning!
—Courtesy Andrew Waldegrave
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Since I seem to be wallowing in sentimentality today, this final sombre note. Last week was the annual Day of Mourning to honour those who’ve been killed or who died as a result of industrial accidents over the decades. 1000s of them, including another 146 lives lost in 2024.
Jennifer and I used to attend the April 28 ceremonies when they were held at the IWA Hall in Duncan but since it was moved to Lake Cowichan, I find it conflicts with my work schedule.
But that doesn’t mean that I don’t reflect upon all those men and women—some of them children, back in the so-called good old days—whose workplace was their death sentence.
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