When we were at the cottage near Carlyle, Nova Scotia, we called our son, Alex. When he asked what we had done that day we started to tell him about the wonderful old cemetery that we had wandered around in, and his immediate response was: "only old people visit cemeteries"! We laughed about it at the time. However, when we were heading home on the city bus in Halifax a few days later, a young girl offered to give up her seat so that we could sit down! I assured her we were just fine to stand, thank you very much! Although I felt rather offended at her thinking we were too old to stand, Art assured me that he was sure she only offered to give up her seat because she saw we were holding grocery bags!
Anyways, I guess it is now official - we are old. We spent two very pleasant afternoons wandering around another couple of old cemeteries in Halifax!
This is the description printed on Wikipedia: The Old Burying Ground was founded in 1749, the same year as the settlement, as the town's first burial ground. It was originally non-denominational and for several decades was the only burial place for all Haligonians. (The burial ground was also used by St. Matthew's United Church (Halifax).) In 1793 it was turned over to the Anglican St. Paul's Church. The cemetery was closed in 1844.
It is difficult to describe what it feels like to stand there beside gravestones from the 1700's. Art and I were quite of awestruck at standing there beside the headstone, imagining a group of people gathered there 200 years ago to say goodbye to their loved one - most definitely felt like Holy ground. When we were there, there was one man raking some leaves - he is on the Board of Directors for the cemetery. He was very happy to speak to us a little more about what we were seeing, and one of the interesting things he pointed out was the footstones that are often in these old cemeteries.
Oftentimes the graves were very close together, and several people would be buried in the same space. So the footstones were there so that people would know the outside limits. You may not be able to see it, but on the footstone, they would put the initials of all those who were buried between the headstone and the footstone.
The other cemetery that we spent some time in was the Titanic cemetery. There were 3 cemeteries that were used as burial sites for the victims of the Titanic, but the majority of them (about 130) were buried at the Fairview Cemetery - about a 20 minute walk from our apartment building. It was very touching to be there, having watched the video about the sinking of the Titanic.
In the video I watched, it spoke of the workers on one of the rescue boats that had gone out to help with the recovery of bodies from the ocean. I can't imagine what they saw, or the depth of emotion they felt, as they got close to the site of the tragedy. Many bodies were just floating in the water. The Mackay-Bennett was one of the recovery ships that rescued about 306 bodies. Some were brought back to Halifax, some were simply buried at sea. Some were able to be identified, some were not, which is reflected in the gravestones that are there. Some have just simple inscriptions, some have poetry or hymn quotes chosen by their families.
One of the touching stories in the video was about the crew on the boat who saw the body of this two year old child floating towards them. He was unable to be identified at the time, although it was assumed that he may possibly have been the child above - Costa Leonard. In any case, the crew from the ship paid for his casket and his funeral - the unknown child - and a gravestone was erected. Just a few years ago, through some diligent research, this child was identified and a new stone was added to the first one, along with a picture of the child.
When Art and I were in Europe several years ago, we traveled to Ypres, in Belgium, and toured the cemeteries that were there (yup - we're old!). It was very touching to see the many, many headstones that said "unknown soldier - known only to God" - or words to that effect (my brain for details is rather poor!). This reminded me being there. It also reminded me that when you are close to the actual place of these events, it is hard to step away from the stories and from the ways that those stories have shaped your community.
One of the fun things that Art and I did while he was here was go to a rather up-scale restaurant for a seafood dinner. It was one that had been recommended to us as one of the places where we could count on a true "seafood" dinner - and they were right! It was at the Five Fishermen and the food was spectacular!
Digby Scallops, Salmon, Haddock, Lobster Risotto and Shrimp - way too tasty! This was the restaurant, including the stairway up into the area where we ate:
When you look at those pictures, my guess is that you wouldn't know you were looking at a haunted house, right? The waitress told us, and the people at the table next to us, that this house had been beside a funeral home, and right after the Great Explosion, it had been used as a temporary morgue - right in the room beside where we were eating - a room now used primarily for larger groups renting out the space for their party - bodies had been lain out for embalming. It was very common for many of the businesses near the harbour to have been taken over because the number of bodies was too overwhelming for any of the funeral homes to handle on their own. However, there were some that believed that this restaurant was now home to many of the "spirits" of those who had lain there. She said - truly - we have had some staff who walked out right in the middle of their shifts because they just couldn't handle working in a haunted house! However, she said she feels like it just adds to the mystique of the place and that she doesn't feel it should frighten anyone away. If anything, it should draw more people there to experience both the fine food and the Nova Scotia character of the place! The man at the table next to us, returned from the washroom at one point and assured us he had seen nothing out of the ordinary other than a woman with a hatchet wandering the halls! I tell you this story for a reason. When we were at the Titanic cemetery the next day, whom should we see but that very same couple who had been at the restaurant the night before!
I didn't want them to feel like I was stalking them, so I took their picture as they walked away from us! It was too funny to see them there - small world indeed!
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