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!!