Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Tombstone Tuesday - Hugh Archer


Well its Tombstone Tuesday again so today its the grave of Hugh Archer in THE PRESBYTERIAN CEMETERY WYEBRIDGE, SIMCOE COUNTY, ONTARIO.


ARCHER

HUGH ARCHER

Died

Sep 11 1889-Aged 52 Yrs

JANE ADAMS - His Wife

Died Mar 14 1905 Aged 57 yrs

Monday, November 15, 2010

Tombstone Tuesday, Metal Tombstones



Tombstone Tuesday. Well I was out taking some cemetery photos and this one caught my eye. At first glance one would not think that their is much different about this grave marker. From a distance it looks quite normal. But in fact the entire grave stone is metal. Metal grave markers of this type are rare in my area. And they are getting rarer all the time as they really don't stand up to the weather as well as granite and they are much more susceptible to damage by vandals. You can see cracks starting to form in this one and I would guess its days are numbered.


Geo Catlin
Died
Feby 16 1880
Aged 80 Years
At Rest

Thursday, November 11, 2010

I Wonder who they are.


I thought perhaps I should do something in honer of Remembrance Day today. So I started looking through my family photographs and I came across this interesting one. My grandfather was a airplane mechanic in WW2 and he brought back a few photos and other items. Some of the photos are of him but this one would seem to be the crew of a bomber. It looks to me like a Lancaster bomber but I am no expert. Did they make it back. I guess I will never know. Gramps died a long time ago and he did not talk much about the war any way. They look like nice young men and I can only hope they survived. Being in a bomber in WW2 was a dangerous job and I really don't know how they found the courage to keep going.

Tuesday, November 09, 2010

How Much For That Tombstone In The Window





How Much For That Tombstone In The Window. Over the years I have spent a lot of time in cemeteries. And while wandering about looking at all the grave markers I have often wondered about how much they must have cost. Many are quite large and beautiful and it must have been a fair burden for some of the families to pay for. Times were hard in The Good Old Days. People did not always have a lot of extra cash. But it was very important to them to have a nice memorial for their loved ones. So to that end I have done a little digging and one of the first things I found was a 1902 Sears and Roebuck catalogue. When I think of shopping at Sears tombstones are not the first thing I think of. But back then Sears sold just about everything you could think of.





The prices in 1902 would seem to start around $6 dollars for a small stone and go right up to almost $30 for a big 4ft tall stone. This would appear quite cheap to us. But when you think about how little people made back then. You realize just how costly they were and how hard it must have been to pay for. For example the 1901 Canadian Census tells us that back then a good wage for a man was about $1.50 to $1.75 per day. So you're looking at a week to a month's pay just for a tombstone. Not an easy burden. Then when you add the cost of the funeral and the fact that the person being buried was in many cases the main source of income for the family. One can really start to get a feeling of just how important it must have been to the family to have a nice marker.

Wednesday, November 03, 2010

OLD PROTESTANT CEMETERY IN ST.MARYS, PERTH COUNTY, ONTARIO


Well I missed Tombstone Tuesday as I was out taking pictures of tombstones. So how about Grave marker Wednesday this week. This week it is the grave marker of Wm Barron. William lived with his family in Blanchard Township in Perth County. He was buried in the OLD PROTESTANT CEMETERY IN ST.MARYS, PERTH COUNTY, ONTARIO in 1858.