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.

Data Entry: Mission Complete (Well, Almost)

Beautiful view on my morning drive to the Church!

Last Thursday was spent in the vestry again. The set up I have in there is quite lovely, and I am extremely grateful to the Church for allowing me to use the space!! There is a great desk in the space, and I have room to spread out all the binders and books I am using. The below picture

Desk level view of half of my workspace.

shows only half (the neater half!) of this spread. Note all of the beautiful wood in the vestry! I completed my initial database entry in my time spent there. In total, there are 54 entries, including four entries that had no monuments, but had kerbing (a stone or cement plot boundary). I did have some difficulties with data entry in regards to conflicting data (I hear this is common with genealogy research). All of the conflicting data had to do with ages and birth and death dates. After speaking with my supervisor, I will be making slight modifications to some of the entries I made, and will be noting in the notes section of the database the other information I encountered. I keep thinking to myself that data entry will be a quick and easy process, but I spent 8 hours at the Church on Thursday inputting all of the information. Now I must make a few, small changes to the database, check the accuracy of my entries, and convert it to a more polished version with forms and buttons in Microsoft Access. Hopefully only one more day will be spent doing this, but knowing my skill with estimating time needed, it will probably take more.

Sarah Pope's tablet. The inscription reads "Farewell Dear Mother."

This week I am going to talk about the symbolism found on the Pope and Kranz tablets. Here is a website that lists meanings of common monument motifs. All four of these tablets have clasped hands with ribbon motifs. Both male and female graves have similar inscriptions on the ribbon for their respective genders. In addition to clasped hands, the Pope tablets also have Easter lilies, roses, and lily of the valley on their monuments. All of these motifs have highly symbolic meanings that may indicate aspects of the lives of the deceased lived.These are the only four monuments in the cemetery that display the clasped-hands motif.    

Abraham Pope's tablet. The inscription reads "United Above."

Caroline Kranz's tablet. The inscription reads "Farewell."

Fred Kranz's tablet. The inscription reads "United Above."

 Clasped hands are a common motif on Victorian Era monuments. Two of the four tablets display the variation of this motif where one finger on the grasping hand points downwards. On the Pope tablets this is displayed on the wife's monument, and on the Kranz tablets, on the husband's. Clasped hands are indicative of a final farewell and a close bond. The finger pointing downward can be associated with sudden death, morality, or a secret masonic handshake (Truswell and Townsend 1997:65, 79; Gillies 2013), but in this case since the two deceased were well into adulthood, it likely represents morality, which also fits in with the other religious symbolism present on the Pope tablets. The Easter lily symbolises purity, innocence, and resurrection, while the rose represents love, beauty, and hope. The lily of the valley flower symbolises the return of happiness, purity, and humanity. Note that on both Pope tablets there are four lily of the valley flowers, which likely represent the four writers of gospel: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The three different types of flowers on the Pope monuments represent the Holy Trinity (Truswell and Townsend 1997:79). Both women have "Farewell" inscriptions on their monuments, and both men have "United Above" inscriptions. In both cases the women died first, and with this context it makes sense that both the men and women would share the same inscriptions. On Frederick Kranz's tablet you can clearly see that one cuff is frilled, representing a woman's hand. This likely represents his wife hand leading him to heaven (Gillies 2013). The Pope tablet imagery suggests that both wife and husband were deeply religious people. All four tablets suggest that both couples were deeply committed to their spouses. The symbolic imagery on these tablets provides a fascinating glimpse into the lives of these four people.

Bibliography 

Gillies, Matthew. 2013. "The Grave Secrets of Symbols and Iconography of the Cemetery." Accessed November 2, 2013. https://mysendoff.com/2012/08/the-grave-secrets-of-symbols-and-iconography-of-the   cemetery/.                                                                                                                                         

Truswell, Norm and David Townsend.1997. A Guide for the Recording, Care and Use of British Columbia's Heritage Cemeteries. Victoria, British Columbia: The Old Cemeteries Society of Victoria.                                                                                                                                         

Fun with Data

Foggy view of the first few rows of monuments to the south of the Church. 

View from the window in the Vestry. 

My lofty goal for this Thursday was to complete all my database entries and I spent the entire day in the vestry. There are approximately 54 entries, and I assumed that it would take about half a day. Needless to say, this did not happen. I began by double checking all of my previous entries for accuracy, and though there were only 16 of them this took me about an hour as I had to double check genealogy information. In all, I got about halfway done my entries. It is taking me so long because I  am including information that is not on the monuments, but in genealogy forms, and for some monuments I have to double check my written information with the actual monument outside to answer lingering questions. There is also conflicting information between a few of the different databases that I must refer to the burial register to confirm, and this takes a lot of extra time as well. Other conflicting areas include monument position differing from plot position. For example, I checked the position of John Greig's plot in the burial register, and it is definitively stated as plot 44 (as in the databases), but his monuments (he has two, an older concrete one and a newer granite one) appear to be on plot 43. The concrete  monument is one that I suspect was added after his burial as well, as it is of an identical style to a number of other monuments that stand on other pioneer burials. It is a simple, slant-faced concrete marker on a concrete base with only the deceased's name  

John Greig's monument. 

and "Pioneer" written on it. This type of monument is also present on two other burials that date to the 1930s and 1940s, with the same level of deterioration as the pioneer monuments. The Old Cemeteries Society of Victoria also stated in their report to St. Stephen's that they hypothesize the pioneer monuments were placed at the same time (1995a). However, the discovery of the two identical monuments from the 30s and 40s leads me to suspect that the pioneer monuments were added around this time as a project to mark the graves of many of the pioneers buried at the cemetery.

I have come across a few particularly interesting stories in the genealogy forms (available through the Church's archives) and in the research I have been doing for a paper on the history of the Church. One of the most interesting stories I have

William Batchelor's elaborate monument. 

come across is of Frederick Reynolds a.k.a William Batchelor. Frederick Reynolds came from the United States under this pseudonym in order to dodge military draft. He set himself up as successful entrepreneur in Victoria, beginning as a butcher and eventually amassing ownership of two business blocks and  10 acres of land for a dairy farm around what is now Reynolds Secondary School. He became extremely wealthy and would often display his wealth conspicuously to the community. He left a lasting testament as Reynolds through the naming of a school, park, and secondary school after this name. However, for his monument, he left explicit instructions for his real name, William Batchelor, to be inscribed, in addition to leaving instructions for its design (OCSV 1995b). Batchelor's monument is one of the most elaborate monuments in the entire cemetery. It is certainly the only one that is so blatantly Gothic in style. The luxury of the monument seems to reflect Batchelor's wealthy lifestyle.

In my future posts, I will continue to highlight interesting monuments and stories as I investigate them for my research. Hopefully next Thursday I will actually achieve my goal of finishing my database entries!

Documenting Monuments: Part II

View of the valley to the south of the Church.
A beautiful fog had rolled over it in the middle of the day.

Due to the help of a friend, I was able to completely finish documenting all of the Victorian Era monuments at St. Stephen's this last Thursday. It really is amazing how much more gets done with the help of another person! I am incredibly thankful for my friend's help, and she did a wonderful job copying down information and cleaning monuments! The day was once again lovely, and halfway through it fog rolled over the valley and into the cemetery. It made for an amazing view.

On Wednesday night I looked through a copy of a paper database given to me by the Old Cemeteries Society stating which burials had monuments and wrote down all the Victorian Era plot numbers that had one. It totalled approximately 52 monuments, but some of these burials did not have any monuments when I went to record them. Whether they originally did when the database was created or an entry mistake occurred I have no idea. A preliminary count of all the monuments recorded has shown that there are approximately 54 Victorian Era monuments in the cemetery. This number will be confirmed once I have completed the database. At the end of the day, I spent a couple of extra hours walking through the rows of monuments to ensure I had not missed any. During monument recording I have been utilising a paper database given to me by the Church to cross-check which person is buried in which plot and a few discrepancies have come up. For example, the database states that David Grieg is buried in plot 44, but when matching monument location with plot location on the map, it seems more likely that John Grieg is buried in this plot. Next Thursday I plan to check burial registers to clear up the confusion. It is possible ground shift has made this difficult to discern.

The Harrison plot. All that remains is a concrete boundary. I am
not sure if monuments for these three burials ever existed, but and
OCSV paper database printed in 1997 says there should be a "stone"
for each burial. Maybe it means the boundary?

Now that documenting is complete, the long process of entering all of the information into my Access database begins. I plan on formatting the database into a more accessible version by transferring the information into a form template. I am not entirely sure how I will be doing this yet, but Youtube videos have thus far been my friend. I then need to create a map with all of the photos I took. I have discovered that my computer does not have nearly enough memory to support the software needed to convert my photos to 3D digital files. A minimum of 16 GB of memory and a 3.5 GHz processing speed are required and my little netbook only has 4 GB of memory and a 1 GHz processor. Not nearly enough! I unfortunately do not know anyone who has this amount of memory on their computer either. So, sadly, that aspect had to be dropped. But overall, progress has been steady and few difficulties have been encountered. Hopefully the rest of the project continues to go as smoothly!

Documenting Monuments

Another beautiful day at the Church. This photo faces the southern boundary of the Cemetery. 

Before photo of Caroline Kranz' marble
dome tablet monument. 

After I finished cleaning. Much more legible!

 I spent last Thursday at the Church recording inscriptions, which meant I also had to clean a few monuments in order to be able to see said inscriptions. I was lucky enough to have excellent weather again, and it was a perfect day to have to work with water. I brought my plastic bristled scrub brush, toothbrush, small ice cream bucket, and soap with me and used the taps present at the cemetery. To clean each monument I followed the instructions I learned from the OCSV. I began by dumping water over the monument to soften any lichen or moss present on it. I first attempted to place the soap directly into the water, but the water was too cold and it would not dissolve properly, so I placed it directly on my brush for the remainder of the day. I then scrubbed the monument in circular motions, or in one direction only until the suds got too dirty and I had to rinse it. I did this repeatedly for many of the monuments. I initially intended to follow a regular pattern of cleaning monuments, beginning in the NW corner of the cemetery, but I changed tactics once I discovered all the monuments in this area were mainly modern. I then began by looking at the area immediately north-west of the church as this is where burials began in the 1860s. I began with the Pope monuments and continued north, cleaning any Victorian Era monument that needed it.

Jane MacMillen's stained and hard to discern monument.
She was buried in 1872.  

I only cleaned each monument enough to be able to read the inscriptions and I did not clean those that I could already read as I am on a time limit with my data collection (I have to have my annotated bibliography and database completely done by the end of November). However, I hope to eventually clean these as a volunteer project in the future. Cleaning the monuments was mostly a successful endeavour. But not all monuments indulged their information to me, even after cleaning, due to erosion and severe staining. Some other difficulties I encountered while cleaning was discerning what material each monument is, both for recording and because I do not want to clean delicate sandstone monuments. While this seems like an easy enough goal, some monuments were so dirty/stained and covered in moss that it was very difficult for me to figure out what material they were made out of. I am not very good at picking out stone types to begin with (this is definitely something I need to work on), so stone that is over 100 years old and stained made this task even more difficult for me at some points. A stone I had particular trouble recording was Jane MacMillen's. I honestly have no idea what material this is and I will need to investigate this further in the future. I feel like it might be sandstone, so all I did was soak it in water as I did not want to risk brushing off any material. This particular monument has inscriptions that extend to the very bottom, and they get increasingly difficult to read as you continue. I copied the inscriptions out as best as I could, and Googled the beginning of the phrase later. Wow did I ever get some parts wrong! The bottom inscription is a variation on a hymn entitled "Happy Soul, Thy Days are Ended" by Charles Wesley. After comparing the actual lines to what I could see on the tablet, I could make out the words much better and successfully copied out the inscription. The inscription on the monument differs slightly in word choice from the version I linked to, but is very close. I plan on Googling other epitaphs that I could not read as well. Sometimes I wonder how I would get by without the help of the internet as this tactic will prove invaluable to my data collection. Next Thursday I will continue to clean and record monuments, and hopefully I will be done this aspect of my research by the end of the month. The forecast looks good for next week, so fingers crossed this lovely weather sticks! Here are two photos of the Pope monuments, which are marble and of the domed tablet style. These ones are particularly stained and were difficult to clean. They, along with the Kranz tablets show the clasped hands motif, which was popular in the Victorian Era. This will definitely be one of the trends I will be looking further into in the near future.  

First Day in the Field

Walkway leading to St. Stephen's Anglican Church

One before photo we took of a particularly dirty monument.  

This last week has been fairly productive. I finished the ethics form required for certain aspects of my project (I may be interviewing the custodian of the Church), volunteered with the OCSV, went to an OCSV tour of Ross Bay, and completed my first day at St. Stephen's Anglican Church! For the last two Saturdays I have made my way to Ross Bay to join cleaning sessions held by the OCSV. Last Saturday it was raining pretty heavily and so only one other volunteer showed up. Instead of cleaning, the other volunteer, a member of the OCSV, explained to me how to clean a monument and showed me the tools that the OCSV uses. This Saturday was gorgeous and so we worked on scraping off moss on many of the burial enclosures (before and after pictures provided below). This was the last cleaning session the OCSV is going to hold this year, but next year (probably beginning in the Spring), they will be holding them every Saturday. Volunteers are welcome, so please join if this is something you may be interested in! The tour of Ross Bay was great fun as well! They have a few exciting tours/ events coming up. Of most interest to me is the Murder Most Foul tour planned for November 3. They have a list of tour themes on their website, here.

After we finished cleaning. 

Area of the cemetery I was working in.

My first day at the Church went quite well. It was a beautiful day out! Firstly, I want to thank St. Stephen's Church for allowing me to do this research and giving me so many great resources to work with! I spent some time walking around the monuments to the south of the Church, marking on a map which ones fell into the date range I am using (1827-1911, although burials at the Church did not begin until 1869). I then spent ALOT of time trying to figure out how to make an Access database more accessible. I realize this is not necessary, but if I can create a database that is easy for people to use that would be ideal. This requires a lot of fiddling with forms and buttons and it is definitely a learning curve! I also found out today that a detailed copying of monument inscriptions did not occur at St. Stephen's in 1994 as had previously been thought. So for next Thursday I plan to haul out the necessary cleaning equipment (gentle soap, buckets, soft plastic bristled brush, toothbrush), clean monuments, and copy inscriptions. I am looking forward to it! Here is one more photo from my day on Thursday. Fall is definitely my favourite season!!

Methodology

I have added a small section to my previous post briefly summarising the articles I posted links to, so it provides at least an idea of what Victorians attitudes and beliefs were for those who don't have time to go to the links. This post will be dedicated to outlining the methodology I will be utilizing in my research. Three areas of focus were talked about in my first post, "Beginning My Research." The first area of focus is Victorian burial trends, the second is creating an electronic database and map, and the third is to make this research relevant to the community. Below I will flesh out exactly how I plan to complete these areas of interest. Throughout my research I will be consistently updating my methodology as what I plan to do, and what I actually do will likely change a little. Warning, this post may be a little dry but I will keep it as short and simple as I can, while still being clear about how I am going to do my research.

To help complete my first area of interest, I will be conducting an in-depth literature review to discover both what Victorian burial trends are, and the history of the church so I can any results, I will then analyse what burial trends are found at St. Stephen's. In my initial research I have found a number of resources that mention Victorian era memorials, cemeteries, or commemoration practices. I have also located information on the history of St. Stephen’s Cemetery via independently published books and preliminary permission to access the Church’s historical registers, maps, and other documents. Once the literature review has concluded and trends have been identified, analysis of the cemetery will take place while I am documenting the burials and after the database has been completed.

Paper Map of St. Stephen's Cemetery.

I will use Microsoft Access to create an electronic database containing all available information on Victorian burials present in the cemetery. Information that will be incorporated into the database includes: plot number; number of individuals; name(s) of the deceased; birth and death dates of the deceased; age of the deceased; additional inscriptions on tombstone; type of tombstone (e.g. tablet, column); tombstone materials; tombstone motifs; type of burial enclosure (e.g. mausoleum, fence, stone boundary); plot type (i.e. individual or family); and any additional notes (e.g. occupation). The OCSV has a set typology for monuments that I will be utilizing for this database. In addition to creating my own database of Victorian era burials, I will be consulting an electronic database of burials at St. Stephen’s Cemetery completed by the OCSV. This database was completed in 1994, and so will likely be useful for inscriptions that are no longer legible. I am sure that at least some inscriptions that are eroded away today were legible in 1994. I will also be cross-checking my own database with this one to ensure I have not missed any pertinent information or made any errors.


In addition to the database, I will be creating an electronic map of all Victorian era burials in the cemetery (the burials to the north and in front of the Church). A small paper map (shown above) will be my base point for creating this electronic map. Inscriptions and photographs of the monuments will be uploaded and attached to the appropriate plot on the map. If possible, software enabling 3D views of the photographs will be experimented with to facilitate a more realistic rendering of the burials. I have emailed a student who has worked with this type of software, so fingers crossed it will work for this project!

The most important part of this project, for me, is to make this research relevant to the community. I find that academic research often takes the information it needs from communities and gives very little, if nothing, back. It is my intent to give something back to the communities I am working with. I have spoken to the custodian and rector from St. Stephen’s Anglican Church and the president of the OCSV to help reach this goal. At this point, I have not been provided with any concrete tasks to complete at St. Stephen’s, although updating maps and an old Church database have been mentioned briefly. Throughout my research, I will be regularly updating my progress on this blog. I have already provided the URL to the OCSV, and will be emailing it to the curator from St. Stephen's shortly. I originally intended to provide it to him in person, but I feel I should get it to him soon as I already have a few posts. It is my hope that anyone interested from the Church or community will follow my progress on this blog as it occurs. I will also be providing St. Stephen’s Anglican Church with a paper to be completed by March of 2014. Hopefully I will able to upload the database and map that I have made online. This will allow anyone from the community to search the database easily and to have access to photographs and plot locations from the map. Discussion with the OCSV has brought up the possibility of expanding their webpage on St. Stephen’s Cemetery, as it is currently sparse. Overall, I am open to any suggestions and requests St. Stephen’s and the OCSV may have in regards to historical related duties and tasks. My goal with this area of focus is to have my research contribute to and benefit the communities in which I am working.

Sorry about how dry that was, but I would like to be completely transparent about what I am doing, and how and why I am doing it. This post covers my planned 'how' so I wanted to make sure it was thorough.

Contextualising Victorian Monuments

Although I introduced my research in my first post, I did not go into great detail about why exactly I am looking at the Victorian era. I intend to provide a more thorough background to my interest in Victorian era burials,as well as a bit of history on Victorian funerals in this post. In this way, I can be clear about why I am so interested in doing this research, as well as provide a contextual base to enhance understanding of Victorian attitudes about death.

In my introduction I stated why I am interested in working at St. Stephen's Church and how this project idea came about. However, I have yet to explain why I am so interested Victorian era burial trends. Ever since I was a child, history has been one of my favourite subjects, and thus anything historical has always caught my attention. Cemeteries often have attracted me as they often provide a breadth of historical information with personal anecdotes, names, and motifs written or carved on the monuments. One of the first experiences I had with a cemetery was one behind a friend's house on an acreage they were renting. This particular acreage had a very old farmhouse on it, and the cemetery behind it was an old family cemetery. Almost all of the monuments dated to the mid 19th century to the early 20th century. Most of the monuments were rather ornate and our imaginations began to run wild imagining the lives that the people described must have lived in her house. As I grew up, I noticed that monuments dating around the Victorian era tended to be more ornate and varied. This pattern was explained somewhat when I began to learn about Victorian attitudes about death. Since then, this era has been particularly interesting to me. When I discovered that the child burial patterns in Ross Bay conformed to Victorian era trends, it made me wonder what other trends were present in that period.

The Angel of Grief monument erected by William Story for his wife in 1894. The link below provides the full story.  A quick Google search reveals the popularity of this monument in the era.
http://wallacestudy.blogspot.ca/2013/03/the-angel-of-grief.html

Here are some links that will hopefully provide easy access to contextual information about Victorian era funerals and mourning. Not all of these touch on monuments, but it does provide a good idea of the attitudes that may help to explain the types of monuments found in the Victorian Era. The gist of many of the articles is that funerals tended to be an extravagant affair in the Victorian era. People would forgo the necessities of life in order to ensure proper funerals. Mourning for widows was extended over a long period of time, and for the first year they were required to wear all black. Length and extent of mourning depended on how close a person was to the deceased (i.e. the more distantly related, the less mourning was required). Many people in the Victorian era had many superstitions about death, and thus small rituals would be followed such as stopping all the clocks in a house and covering mirrors once someone has died. Victorian era obsession with death was often exemplified in poetry and prose, and a favourite pastime of Victorians was picnicking in cemeteries.

Mourning in the Victorian Era by Heather Rothman: This article provides a brief description of appropriate behaviour and dress around mourning as well as external sources.

Victorian Funeral Customs and Superstitions: This is a post on a blog for Oak Grove Cemetery, which is a Victorian era cemetery in Fall River, Massachusetts. This particular post touches on fears many Victorians had surrounding death and being buried (or being buried alive, a real but rare occurrence). If you look to the right and scroll down, you can find a section called categories where other interesting posts about the cemetery and Victorian era practices are listed.  There is an interesting post entitled "Arches, gates, and doors" that provides information on the symbolism of these types of monuments.

Funeral Practices in the Victorian Era: This article provides an in depth overview of what a Victorian era funeral would look like, what kind of funeral money could buy, and even touches on types of monuments that were popular.

So this explains the deep rooted interest in the Victorian era that has sustained my interest in researching trends in this period. I have also attempted to provide a few resources that will help contextualise some of the attitudes surrounding death and funerals in the Victorian era.

Moving Forward

A few things have happened in the last week and half. First, I received JCURA!! JCURA stands for the Jamie Cassels Undergraduate Research Award and it provides monetary help to undergraduates completing their own research. This is very exciting for me because it provides me with funds to make the 40 minute drive (one way) out to the Church every week. It will also provide me with money to complete the poster project I will be doing for JCURA in March, and any other expenses that may crop up during my research. Here is a link to the UVic page that presents the abstracts of other people who also won. There is definitely some awesome undergraduate research going on!

Second, I finally finished a proposal I have been working on for the past 2 1/2ish weeks. I completed my rough draft with plenty of time to spare and I ended up going back to it a lot and changing minor things over and over again. It got to the point where I decided that if I did not submit it, I never would haha. So, that is done and it feels good to have it out of the way and submitted. Another academic stepping block has come up in the form of ethics. Both my professor and I are not sure whether or not I will be needing to complete an Ethics form for this project. Thus, we will be looking into this and if so I will complete this before my work at the cemetery begins.

Third, I had a meeting with two people from the Old Cemeteries Society of Victoria. Here is a link to their website. The OCSV has done a number of really great things at Ross Bay, including cleaning  and repairing tombstones and fences surrounding burials, meticulously recording the burials, and gathering information about those buried at Ross Bay. They do this purely on volunteer hours and with donations! They conduct tours of Ross Bay every Sunday (each with a different theme) and I highly recommend going to one! Tours are only $5 for a non-member and $2 for a member (instructions on how to become a member are on their website). All money collected goes back into maintaining the tombstones.

Ross Bay Cemetery.

The two members with whom I met showed me the OCSV database on Ross Bay, which is lovely and something I doubt I can recreate (but I will try valiantly!). They also showed me folders and binders that hold the database they have on St. Stephen's, information about how they completed the project, and historical information collected on the Church and cemetery. Within this binder is a section on the history of individuals buried at St. Stephen's and this should prove to be both interesting and useful for situating my project results. They also told me about a disc where an older member of the St. Stephen's congregation was filmed reminiscing about the graves and Church.

We also discussed some possibilities for things I could do. Three tasks came up that I am very much looking forward to. One is updating/adding to the OCSV webpage on St. Stephen's, and the other two involve me separately uploading my electronic database and map to the St. Stephen's Anglican Church Official website (with the Church's permission of course). I will be attending a cleaning session with the OCSV on September 28. We will be working in Section O of Ross Bay, near May St. and Memorial Drive. Anyone can join and it should prove to be a fun day! I would like to thank the OCSV for taking time out of their day to meet with me and review all the resources they have on St. Stephen's. They were very helpful and the meeting was quite valuable to me. The meeting ended with me frantically search for my wallet (I was wearing a new sweater with tiny pockets), which makes me feel a little silly. But I found it! It had sneakily fallen out while I was getting out of my car and was still sitting underneath it! Thankfully.


Next week I will be meeting with the custodian and rector from St. Stephen's Church and we will be going over my project description and timeline. I hope to be out and working in the cemetery by the beginning of October. I plan to be at the cemetery every Thursday for most of the day, although this may change after my meeting next week.

Here is a beautiful fall picture of Ross Bay to finish my post!

http://wikimapia.org/38550/Ross-Bay-Cemetery