JCURA Research Fair

 Common monument types and Victorian era trends present at St. Stephen’s Anglican Cemetery. 

Today was the JCURA Fair, in which I and about 100 other students presented the research for which we received the award. The fair was quite fun and I met a lot of great people there!  Here is a link to the poster I presented. The only way I could get the pdf online was to upload and share via Google Drive. However, it is small and hard to read so I am going to copy and paste its content onto here.

Introduction
This research was motivated by a desire to see if correlations exist between
the often-elaborate monuments found within Victorian era garden cemeteries
and monuments found within small churchyard cemeteries. A greater
motivation was to take this opportunity to find ways to make academic research
accessible and relevant to host communities.
Two research questions were investigated: 1) Are Victorian era monument
trends found at St. Stephen’s Anglican Cemetery? 2) Are there any differences
between child and adult monuments?

Methodology
• Documented monument types, inscriptions, and measurements.
• Referenced personal data with data collected from 1994 to ensure accuracy.
• Created a database of monuments, with relevant historical information, for
community reference and analysis.
• Created an interactive plot map with pictures of monuments and inscriptions
for community reference and analysis.
• Documented research progress via an internet blog.

Dataset
• 55 monuments in total. I considered any marker indicating a burial to be a
monument. This includes curbing, even if no separate monument is present.
• Date range utilized: 1869-1911. Although the Victorian era lasted from
1837-1901, documented burials at St. Stephen’s Anglican Cemetery did not
begin until 1869. I added an extra 10 years to account for lasting trends.

Results 

•Concrete and sandstone, cheap and easily obtained materials,

account for almost half of the monuments.

• I have been unable to confirm, but suspect that 11 concrete

“Pioneer” monuments are late additions to the cemetery.

• Marble, the most popular Victorian era material type (Duval and

Rigby viii; Trask 38), is the second most common material.

• 18 monuments have epitaphs, 22 have imagery, and 25 have
epitaphs and/or imagery.
• Religious and Victorian era trends regarding imagery and
epitaphs are approximately equal in prevalence. Some overlap of
Victorian and religious content occurs. Categorization was thus
dependent on degree of conformity. For example, euphemistic
speech, such as referring to death as “sleeping” or “resting,”
became popular in the Victorian era (D. Smith 85; Gillion vii).
Therefore, even if a monument epitaph read something like
“Asleep in Jesus,” I considered it Victorian rather than religious.

Comparison of an adult & child’s monument.

• 10/55 monuments included children less than 12 yrs old

• Size was the most prominent

difference between singular adult

and children’s monuments.

• 7/8 children’s monuments were miniature and were on average

717 cm squared smaller. The only normal sized monument was a

new marker.

• 2/10 monuments with children were full sized family monuments. This

conforms to trends noticed in other Victorian era cemeteries, wherein no

child monuments are full-sized individual monuments (Buckham168-70).

Conclusions/Further Research

Overall, modest monuments prevail. However, Victorian era trends,

whether regarding material type, epitaphs, imagery, or size are quite

common. Furthermore, my doubts regarding the dates of some of the

concrete monuments (due to wear correlating with identical

monuments from the 1930s) may suggest that monuments bearing

Victorian era trends are most prevalent.

Despite the regularity of Victorian trends, the monuments are not as

grand as those often seen in garden cemeteries (Gillion). This, in

combination with the prevalence of modest monuments, gives the

cemetery a much more subdued appearance. This could be due to

economics, as most of the deceased were farmers, but considering

the popularity of expensive marble, it is more likely because of

Christian ideals regarding solemnity and modesty (T. Smith 7).

Further research may include investigating additional churchyard

cemeteries to secure a larger dataset. Furthermore, direct comparison

of churchyard monuments with monuments found in larger Victorian

era cemeteries, such as Ross Bay Cemetery, would also be valuable.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank and acknowledge the WSÁNEĆ peoples, whose

territory St. Stephen’s Anglican Church and Cemetery sits upon. I

would also like to thank the custodian of St. Stephen’s for generously

supporting my research, and my supervisor, Dr. Erin McGuire, for her

guidance. Without them, this research would not have been possible.

Finally, I would like to thank the LTC for their financial support

This poster was a great opportunity for me to tie together my research results with visuals such as pie charts and bar graphs before the paper I write in the summer. It also presents a polished and complete set of results which I have not yet actually detailed coherently on this blog. 

Hope you all enjoy!

References

Buckham, Susan. “Commemoration as an expression of personal relationships and group identities: a case study of York Cemetery.” Mortality 8.2 (2003): 160-175. Print.

Duval, Francis and Ivan Rigby. Early American Gravestone Art in Photographs: 200 Outstanding Examples. New York: Dover Publications. Print.

Gillion, Edmund. Victorian Cemetery Art. New York: Dover Publications, 1972. Print. 

Smith, Deborah. “Safe in the Arms of Jesus: Consolation on Delaware Children's Gravestones, 1840-99.” Markers: Journal of the Association of Gravestone Markers 4 (1987): 85-105. Print.

Smith, Theophilus. Original Designs for Christian Memorials. London: J.H and J. Parker, 1864. Print.

Trask, Deborah. Life How Short, Eternity How Long: Gravestone Carving and Carvers in Nova Scotia. Halifax: The Nova Scotia Museum, 1978. Print.

Map Completed!

I apologize for being on such a long hiatus. I have been pretty busy since the beginning of term. In this post I am going to share the map of all of the Victorian Era monuments at St. Stephen's Anglican Cemetery. I made this map using Google Earth, and each pin includes a photo of each monument and the text of the inscriptions. I hope you find this useful! I have double-checked my entries and have tried to ensure everything is accurate, but mistakes still occur. Please let me know if something (information-wise) does not look right!

After hours and hours of attempting to get this to work (all of last night and this morning), below is a successfully embedded Google Earth gadget that displays my map:

My next project is going to be trying to figure out how to embed my database in here. I feel like this may not be possible so I may just be linking to a Google Drive version on here. Hopefully not though!

Here are some lovely historical photos of St. Stephen's as an apology for being so tardy with my blog posting! I have already received permission from the Royal BC Museum to post them on here.
Hope you enjoy!!

St. Stephen's Church and Cemetery ca. 1890

Image # A-04403 courtesy of the Royal BC Museum, BC Archives.

St. Stephen's in the 1870s.

Image # B-02800 courtesy of the Royal BC Museum, BC Archives. 

St. Stephen's in the 1880s.

Image # B-02799 courtesy of the Royal BC Museum, BC Archives.

St. Stephen's in 1889.

Image # B-02801 courtesy of the Royal BC Museum.

A Cult of Memory

It snowed on Thursday!  

I finished my database last Thursday, along with all the queries, reports, and forms that go with it. In addition to working on the database, I have been spending a lot of time reading sources

View from the vestry window facing north. 
Snow covered the cemetery in a light blanket by the end of the day. 

regarding Victorian era monument details and materials and attitudes and behaviours about death. One interesting aspect of  Victorian era mourning is the emergence of a  "cult of memory" (Aries in Smith 1987, p. 85). Before the Victorian era, attitudes around death focused on the imminency of death and the need to strive for your soul's salvation. This resulted in many monuments speaking directly to the immorality of the deceased or being particularly blunt about the permanence of death (Smith 1987, p. 85; Gillion 1972, p. vii). For example, one monument's inscription from the 18th century identifies the deceased as a "dirty liar"(Gillion 1972, p. vii)  While not all monuments would have been so directly moralising, the direct and blunt nature of monument inscriptions changed in the Victorian era. Epitaphs began to shirk the finality of death, often stating the deceased "sleeps" or is "at rest." Other epitaphs speak to how loved the deceased were and reflect the survivors' need for consolation (Gillion 1972, p. vii; Smith 1987, p. 85). Monument materials also changed, shifting from the ever-present grey slate to white marble (Gillion 1972, p. vii). Overall, Victorian era monuments and the inscriptions upon them reflect this cult of memory, and often speak to a survivor's need to venerate the dead in an effort to comfort themselves (Smith 1987, p. 85).

Sarah Pope's monument. This epitaph is a religious hymn and illustrates the idea of death as slumber, rather than a permanent end. It reads: "O for the death of thoes [sic]/ Who slumber in the Lord./ O be like theirs my last repose/ Like theirs my last reward."

As I read into this, I noticed that the epitaphs present at St. Stephen's definitely followed this trend. While many monuments did not include inscriptions other than those identifying the deceased, those that did spoke of the deceased in a loving, endearing way, often speaking to the idea that the dead merely slumber or have gone on to live in heaven. These epitaphs reject the permanence of death and speak about the deceased in a sentimental way that would comfort survivors. Some examples of this include: " Sleep on sweet babe/ And take thy rest/ God called thee home/ He thought it best"; "His toils are past, His work is done./ And he is fully blest, He fought the fight/The Victory won, and enters into rest";  "O for the death of thoes [sic]/ Who slumber in the Lord./ O be like theirs my last repose/ Like

Mary Watson's monument. The epitaph on this reads: "She is
not dead, but sleepeth." Perhaps one of the most obvious
epitaphs rejecting the notion of a permanent death. 

theirs my last reward."; "Come Unto Me All Ye That/ Labour And Are Heavy Laden And/ I Will Give You Rest"; and most obviously "She is not dead, but sleepeth." Even hymns or bible verses chosen often speak to the concept of sleeping or resting, as the third and fourth epitaphs in the list above. One last epitaph I will highlight here is on a  monument marking the burial of a young wife: "An angel while on/ Earth, She is waiting/ now in Heaven." A simple, yet poignant epitaph, which suggests that although the deceased has left this life, she waits in Heaven for her loved ones. The Victorian trend of venerating the dead seems to be very much present at St. Stephen's Cemetery and it speaks to the desire and need for consolation and positive remembrance after the death of a loved one. A book made for memorial dealers in 1947 states that "[m]onuments are for the living and they fail of their purpose if they do not inspire reverence, faith and hope" and that a "cemetery memorial should be a source of consolation to the bereaved" (American Monument Association, Inc 1947, pp. 33, 40). This tradition appears to have began in the Victorian era and continues on today.

Eliza Anderson's monument. Her epitaph reads: "Come Unto Me All Ye
That/ Labour And Are Heavy Laden And/ I Will Give You Rest."

This marks the end of the most intensive part of my project. I have completed the bulk of what I set out to do, however, I still have to write a paper pulling together all of my findings, many of which I have tried to highlight in this blog.  I will also be creating a map with photos and inscriptions next semester. This blog post will be the last until after the holidays. I will continue to update next semester, however, because the bulk of my research has been completed, it will be more sporadic and not on a weekly basis. I hope everyone has enjoyed this blog as much as I have enjoyed writing it! Happy holidays!!







Bibliography

AMERICAN MONUMENT ASSOCIATION, 1947. Memorial symbolism: epitaphs and design types. Boston: American Monument Association. 

GILLION, E.V., 1972. Victorian Cemetery Art. New York: Dover Publications, Inc.

SMITH, D.A., 1987. Safe in the Arms of Jesus: Consolation on Delaware Children's Gravestones, 1840-99. Markers: Journal of the Association of Gravestone Markers, 4, pp. 85-105.

Measure Twice, Cut Once: Lessons in Data Entry

It was a late night at the Church. But on the bright side, I got to
see it lit up! (Haha, get it, on the bright side..lit up... okay
try not to judge me for that...)

I learned a valuable lesson last Thursday: the saying "measure twice, cut once" should also be "check data twice, enter once."  I spent last Thursday checking my database, in addition to entering queries in an effort to pick out general statistics and trends. As I was double checking one of my entries, I noticed a name on the monument in a photo that I didn't remember seeing in my entry. I double checked my entry and nope, it was not there. The name I missed happened to be the third name on the monument and not the last name. This meant I had to insert two new columns for First and Last Name 3, four new columns for birth and death year & date 3, one new column for Age 3, and had to rename all of the columns following these newly inserted columns. Easy enough you may think, but Access has this funny little quirk where when you rename a column it forces you back to the primary key and you have to scroll all the way back to where you need to go each time. Also, it doesn't allow you to have a column named the same thing twice. Thus, I first renamed each column without a space between the name and the number (e.g. Birth Date4 v.s. Birth Date 4), got forced back to the primary key, and then went back and put spaces in, of course again getting returned to the primary key after each adjustment. After this was complete, I had to ensure that all of the other entries were aligned with the new columns. This took me about 3ish hours to finish in total. When collecting my data I had somehow neglected to write the third name down and so missed it when I was entering everything into my database. Lesson learned well last Thursday: ensure all data is accurate before entering into database.

Note how much smaller the ledger stone is for the burial
on the far left (2 year old). I could not quite get it into the picture,
but you can also kind of see how much longer the monument
on the far right (an adult) is from the one on the left. 

I would like to share one interesting query that I completed last Thursday. You may remember that in my first post I talked about how I was interested in comparing child monument trends at Ross Bay to St. Stephen's. At Ross Bay it was noted that when children (<12 years old) were buried individually, they had smaller monument sizes than adult monuments. If they were not buried individually, they were included on family monuments or within family plots. Essentially, in the area looked at (Potter's Field and General Section M), no children's burials were noted to have been individual with a full sized monument. After completing a quick query including age, plot type, monument class, name, and notes, I found that this trend is consistent at St. Stephen's. It is so consistent actually, that a particular monument type (concrete slant faced monument with plaster top) used for both adult and children's burials actually changes in

Without scale it is hard to tell how small this monument is.
However, it was approximately 13 cm smaller than the
smallest adult monument of this type. 

size depending on the age category it belongs to. While not differing hugely in width, there is a considerable difference regarding the length of the monuments, with the average child's monument being 32cm smaller.This trend was also noted with the pilaster column monument type. The average adult pilaster column varies in size (measuring the column only, not the base or any urn decoration) and is at its smallest still 13 cm taller than a child's pilaster column. In total there are 10 monuments that are either dedicated to children, or include children on them. Not one of these monuments is full sized, dedicated to a child only, and has its own plot. Only one monument dedicated to a child is full sized and it is placed within a family plot rather than having its own plot. This particular monument belongs to an infant buried elsewhere in the cemetery. To conclude, last Thursday was a long day (10 hours), but I learnt a valuable lesson regarding data entry (dually noted for the future), and I also discovered an interesting trend in the cemetery. Overall, it was a productive day!

The Thomson Family

Last Thursday was spent double checking the accuracy of my entries. I also added a last name search bar to my database. However, I cannot seem to figure out a way for the search bar to pull up the form version of an entry. It only pulls up the table version, which is much more difficult to

Finished look of the form version of the database.

read than the form version. I spent a couple hours searching the internet for a way to pull up a form version of the entry and fiddled around with different coding options but nothing worked in the end. I ended up just changing it back to what I originally had and felt a little sad I just lost two hours of time that could have been spent doing something else. It really is amazing how much time stuff like that can take up. I did not quite finish double checking all of my entries as I had a lecture at the university I had to be at for 7:30 and so left a bit earlier than usual (4:30). As my progress has been rather slow (again), I am going to quickly highlight one of the most prominent pioneer families buried at St. Stephen's for the rest of the post: the Thomson family.

Thomson family plots. 

The Thomson family plots (#116-122) are marked by a large granite, rustic style tablet monument with additional plaques placed on the granite kerbing bordering the plots. It is one of the largest family burials in the Cemetery. Thomson was the second person to allocate farm land in the Mount Newton Valley, the first being Angus McPhail. Thomson’s arrival to Vancouver Island was troubled, and the ship he travelled on crashed near Barkley Sound, allegedly due to a drunken captain. Although the captain died, Thomson and the other passengers made it safely to shore (OCSV 1995; Wilkey & Wilkey 1995:5). Thomson made his way to the Mount Newton Valley, where in 1856 he staked out 200 acres of land, for which he paid the Hudson Bay Company 14 pounds, thirteen shillings, and four pence. Shortly after this, he married

Western face of the monument. 

Duncan Lidgate’s step-daughter, 15 year old Margaret Dyer. In 1858 they had their first child and moved into a small log cabin on Thomson’s land. (Wilkey & Wilkey 1995:6, OCSV 1995). Thomson provided the land that St. Stephen's Anglican Church and Cemetery sits on today in February of 1863. A payment of $20 dollars is noted in Bishop Hills' diary as having been paid for the land. This sum of money for 6 acres of land is a marginal amount and that same diary shows that $220 was paid for 7 acres of land elsewhere in the Victoria area (Wilkey & Wilkey 1995:6-7; Bell 1982:23; Hills 1893:172). The Thomsons were active community members and contributed much to the early pioneer community in the Mount Newton Valley area. In the Saanichton area today many streets are named after the Thomsons--a lasting legacy of the important role they played in the early pioneer history in the area. 


Bibliography 

Bell, Betty

    1982    The Fair Land. Victoria, British Columbia: Sono Nis Press.

Hills, George

    1863    Bishop Hills Diaries Volume 7, May 6-June 25 1863. 35 mm microfilm. Victoria, British Columbia: Royal British Columbia Museum Archives. 

Old Cemeteries Society of Victoria

    1995    Historical Research. In The Old Cemeteries Society: Report to St. Stephen’s Anglican Church. Victoria, British Columbia.

Wilkey, Gwen and Michael Wilkey

    1995    Symbols of Faith: The Story of Saint Stephen’s Church Saanichton, British Columbia. Saanich: West Saanich Aerographic Publications.

  

A Modest Monument

Sign welcoming visitors to the Church.  

Unfortunately last Thursday I did not make it to the Church. I have quite a few assignments in my other classes right now, and so I was unable to dedicate a whole day to my research. However, I was able to do some work at home, and I managed to review a few more entries to ensure their accuracy. Due to the small amount of work that I have completed since the last post, I will highlight a specific monument type that I encountered a lot during monument recording. Out of 54 monuments recorded in all, the slant faced monument with a plaster top made up 10 of them. This equates to about 18.5 % of all of the Victorian Era monuments in the cemetery. This is a substantial portion of the monuments and is second in quantity only to the simple, concrete only slant-faced markers, marking pioneer burials. They are equal in quantity to domed tablets, which are made of a greater and often more expensive variety of stone.

Earliest dated monument of this type. 

This monument is one of the simplest monuments in the cemetery, and usually does not have any motifs engraved upon it. There are two exceptions to this, wherein two Latin crosses are engraved on either side of the inscription. The earliest date at which this type of monument appears is 1876, marking the burial of Baby Michell. This type of monument is used for both children and adults,

One of only two of this type of monument that had any motif
decoration upon it. 

although they differ in size accordingly. When marking the burial of children, these monuments are not as wide horizontally as the adult monuments are. Although I was unable to take measurements at the time of monument recording due to not having a tape

One of only two of this type of monument that had any motif
decoration upon it. 

measure, I intend to do this on Thursday. Interestingly, for this monument, the burial trend noted in Ross Bay and York Cemetery by Buckham (as spoken of in my first post), is consistent. Not one child's monument is the same size as an adult monument, and each child's monument is only commemorating one child, even if said child was too young for a name. Some, although not all, children's monuments had smaller ground ledgers as well.

The modesty of this monument is notable. While in the pictures, it appears to be made of a material mimicking a higher grade stone, it is actually a base of concrete with some kind of plaster layered on top. It is within this plaster that the inscription is engraved. On most of the monuments, the plaster is cracking or chipping off. A picture below shows a side view of one of these monuments, illustrating clearly its dual composition. Also note how chipped the plaster is on the edge. It seems to me that this monument may be so popular because of its modesty. Despite the Victorian era being marked by elaborate monuments, one of my hypotheses from the

Side view revealing the dual composition and tendency
to chip. 

beginning of this research project was the possibility that monuments in a Christian cemetery were more likely to display less extravagance so typical of the era. This is possibly due to Christian beliefs that value modesty, both material and behavioural. Of course, it may also relate to the presumably cheaper cost of the monument, or may be a combination of both factors.

I apologise for the late post this week, it has been a busy time for me! I will be posting again this week, probably on Saturday or Sunday, providing updates for my progress to occur on Thursday.

Forms, Buttons, and Formatting

View walking up to the Church.

I spent most of last Thursday searching YouTube videos on how to make my database look more polished through forms, buttons, and lots of formatting!  I was mostly successful, although I am pretty sure there is not a way to create a search bar that allows you to search any piece of information about the deceased and have it pull up that individual. There is, however, a way to create a search bar that will perform a specific query, such as a first or last name (but not both!). So I will probably just end up adding one of these next Thursday. Then I have to double check my data, as I only got about half way through last Thursday, and then I am done the database! Next, I will be reading a lot of sources to create my annotated bibliography. I anticipate at this point I will be inundating my blog with interesting things I find in the literature! Here is a screen shot of my database:

The "More Info" button when clicked leads to a new page which displays all other available information I could find about that particular burial. This includes monument class, plot type, plot section, monument materials, inscriptions, motifs, age of deceased, birth and death years and dates, occupation, cause of death, and any other notes that are relevant, but do not fit in the above categories. Of course not all of this information is available for all burials so there are definitely blanks among these categories for many of the burials. Also, because the Thomson burial had 6 people on the monument, of which I included all in my database, all of the forms contain spots for up to 6 first and last names, birth and death dates/years, and ages. Because the burials are so variable in the quantity of people on the monument, I had to make a standardised form that would accommodate them all. This means that most of the forms have many blanks because most only had one or two people named on them. However, I could not find any other way to mitigate this, so while a bit of an inconvenience, it is not that bad. Here is a shot of the form:

You have to scroll down and to the right a bit to get all of the information, but it is still pretty easy to nab the information you need. Formatting this form took me ages! Getting all of the columns to line up, and making sure the text boxes all had the same width required a lot of fiddling with formatting, but it felt amazing once it was done! So that is my database! All 54 entries are in and once it is entirely complete, I will be discussing how it can be made available to anyone that is interested. There is more information in it than just that which is displayed on the monument. It also has information I gathered for genealogy forms. I would like to note that while I did include all names on the monuments, even if some went past my 1911 end date (I think the latest is 1929), I did not include genealogy information about the deceased that were buried after 1911. I included their names as I did not want to omit information that was actually on the monument, but because they are much more recent, I also did not want to include extra information on them as I did with those people who did fall into the Victorian date range I am using (1869-1911). That is it for now, but while looking through my photos I found one that I would like to share here. It is close to one I have posted before, but imparts a bit of a different view and atmosphere. It is my favourite photo that I have taken to date.