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Written by DeadGirl
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Monday, 20 February 2006 |
By Erin Rankin
News Staff
Feb 17, 2006-Canada
Imagine standing on Wilson Street in Ancaster - it's an early July day, the year is 1832. The village is peaceful. You were on your way to the butcher when the rattling sound of a wagon caught your attention.
You recognize Reverend George Sheed and are curious to know why the minister is following the wagon on foot. The wagon stops in front of a local graveyard. From the back of the wagon, men unload a pine coffin. They return and unload another.
You should get home, your mother will want you, but curiosity gets the better of you. So you cross the street and approach a small crowd that has begun to assemble. It's not long before you find a friend. You nod towards the two boxes.
"It's Reverend Sheed's brother and his brother's wife. Both died yesterday," whispers your informant.
Then he lets out a rush of air between his teeth and hisses, "It's the cholera morbus. They say the two of 'em didn't last even a day."
You turn on your heel and run all the way home.
By the end of August, cholera claims the lives of half a dozen more residents. Then the cooling September winds puts an end to the dreaded plague at least temporarily.
While few of us today even know what cholera is, for early pioneers who caught the illness, it was a death sentence. When the first outbreaks occurred in Upper Canada, desperate officials did what they could to ward off the disease; this consisted of calling for a national feast day to pray for God's mercy and deliverance. Like so many other ailments and physical accidents, without proper antibiotics and medication, cholera was just one of the many ruthless killers.
While early residents had little protection against the various causes of mortality, they developed elaborate rituals to deal with emotional pain and suffering of losing loved ones. It's these rituals, as well as where and how our ancestors were buried that fascinate Fieldcote Museum's Lois Corey and Nonni Miller.
Ms. Corey and Ms. Miller have now turned their fascination into Fieldcote's newest exhibit - A Grave Matter: Cemeteries of Ancaster. Ms. Corey said the catalyst for the exhibit was the ongoing controversy around Ancaster's oldest and once lost but recently found Cooley cemetery. While this cemetery gains historical recognition and possibly protection, Ms. Corey said she and Ms. Miller wanted to tell the story of Ancaster's old, lost and forgotten burial places.
Visitors to Fieldcote will walk through a full-scale makeshift graveyard complete with grave stones and barren trees. Or see an antique horse-drawn hearse used to convey the dead to their resting places. Visitors can also learn about some of the symbolism around death, including the practice of marking tombstones with little lambs.
"These would have belonged to children. Infant mortality was extremely high and as you wander through an early graveyard you'll be struck by how many gravestones have lambs," said Ms. Corey.
There is also a Victorian parlour dressed for a funeral visitation, with an antique coffin. Prior to funeral parlours, it was common practice for friends and family to come to the home of the dead person to view their body before burial.
Ms. Corey said as Upper Canadian society became more advanced, practices surrounding death became more elaborate.
"Very early settlers would have buried people on their property with a small wooden cross for a marker. As time went on the wooden cross disintegrated. There are hundreds of these small family burial plots throughout this area," said Ms. Corey.
Because early settlers were closer to death and had to prepare the body for the grave themselves, there were elaborate customs and formalities to follow.
Ms. Corey explained the significance of a wreath - far removed from our own modern-day pleasant associations of Christmas.
"People would often hang wreaths outside their doors when somebody died. This told visitors there had been a death and the family was in mourning," said Ms. Corey.
The custom of sending flowers to the funeral home also originated in this time period. Because there was no way to preserve or embalm the dead, other than keep the corpse on ice, flowers were a way of covering up the putrid smell of death until the traditional three-day viewing period had ended, said Ms. Corey.
There were also rituals around clothing. Society expected women to wear black and only black for at least one year after her husband died.
Men wore black arm bands for three months - perhaps only practical since the leading cause of death for young women was giving birth to their children.
While some of these rituals hold little place in modern society, Ms. Corey said besides being interesting, they have educational value.
"How people deal with death says a lot about how they lived," she said.
Ms. Corey said this is part of the reason she and Ms. Miller also incorporated an exhibit that explores how Ancaster's First Peoples - The Neutrals buried, or didn't bury their dead.
"When people died, they placed them up high on pyres so the bones would bleach in the sun," said Ms. Corey.
To find out more about this custom, or cemeteries and people of Ancaster visit Fieldcote Memorial Park and Museum. A Grave Matter runs until April 16 and will be accompanied by periodic lectures on customs and practices surrounding death starting Feb. 20. For more information call 905-648-8144.
http://www.dundasstarnews.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=brabant/Layout/Article&c=Article&cid=1140130219617&call_pageid=1069851996007&col=1073476868082 |
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