The next major challenge in Audrey’s journey was locating Shauneen’s grave, and in this task, at Audrey’s request, I took the next steps. Audrey had friends and family who had offered to go to the Fraser Cemetery with her to look for Shauneen’s gravesite, but she had so far not taken up their offer, for fear of disappointment:
…I could get ten people to come with me [to Fraser Cemetery] – they’ve all said, “I’ll go with you, no problem.” And the Anglican minister from my church … but [Shauneen] is not there. Well, she probably isn’t… but where else would she be? I mean it says right here…
During our first meeting, Audrey and I discussed possible explanations for the lack of a listing for Shauneen at the Fraser Cemetery, including the possibility of an infants’ mass graveyard that did not have individual names recorded.38 Audrey remained skeptical that we would find a grave marker or even a specific gravesite:
I know I’m not going to find a plaque with her name on it, because I understand from reading about this stuff that… if the parents didn’t provide a plaque, there wasn’t going to be one. So I already cried over that.
Even if they could tell you “this part of the cemetery was used at that time, this would be where she is” – even that. Of course, I’d like to go and [be told] “here’s a place to put a stone” – but we’re not going to find a place to put a stone, I’m pretty sure. But would we find a place to do anything? I don’t think anyone’s going to be able to say “number four over here is your sister,” but could we plant a rose bush or something?
I encouraged Audrey not to give up hope, but also felt cautious about what we might find, given the history of moved, erased, and overbuilt graveyards in New Westminster. And to date all we had was a death record that had been removed from the online provincial database, a Fraser Cemetery burial list that did not include Shauneen’s name, and an archivist’s suggestion that Audrey’s information about Shauneen must be incorrect.
Before my first meeting with Audrey in 2012, I had contacted landscape architect Catriona Hearn, who had been involved in the infants’ memorial at Mountain View Cemetery as well as the Woodlands Memorial Garden, to ask if she knew of an infant burial area at Fraser Cemetery. She was not certain but gave me a contact for the Engineering Department at New Westminster City Hall, which is responsible for New Westminster cemeteries.
38 Such a graveyard area had come to light in Vancouver’s Mountain View Cemetery, and a memorial garden had been established in 2006 to commemorate 6,600 infants buried there in mass graves (Todd 2008; Post 2011).
After meeting with Audrey and gaining her permission, I gave the contact, Jon, a call and explained that I had been unable to locate Shauneen in the online finding aid for Fraser Cemetery. He promised to look into it and called back less than an hour later to announce, “We have her.” There was no grave marker, but they had a record of her burial plot, though he was told the spelling of her name was different from the spelling I had given him. When I asked for more detail about where her gravesite was, he referred me to the on-site caretaker, Jim, for more information. I called Jim and he advised me to come in person so he could show me the grave location. When I asked him about Shauneen’s name not being in the online database, he explained that the online list was not official and was posted by volunteers,39 as there was no official online database for Fraser
Cemetery. (The Fraser Cemetery web page is nested within the City of New Westminster website, and does not include a name search function.)
After sitting with this information for a while and considering how to share it with Audrey, I decided to make an exploratory trip to the cemetery on my own, to see what condition the gravesite was in. An hour later I arrived at the door of the tiny onsite hut that was the Fraser Cemetery Office. The caretaker, Jim, stepped outside to lead me to the gravesite. As we walked, I asked him about the record of Shauneen – were the records computerized? He said only the burials from the last ten years. I mentioned that I thought it odd that the name was spelled differently, but he did not comment. Jim was a man of few words. We walked east along a row of gravestones and he pointed to an orange cone he had placed by Shauneen’s burial plot. On each side was a gravestone, as well as one just southward of her plot. All were identified as children’s graves. Nearby were other children’s gravestones, interspersed with grassy spaces. I asked Jim about how a person would come to be buried in this area (wondering if perhaps it was an area set aside for children). He looked confused and responded that this had been the Church of England section, but was now operated by the city. I asked if financial constraints would explain the absence of gravestones, and he agreed, pointing to several other unmarked plots. He did not seem inclined to chat or offer more information, but before he left, I inquired
whether a family could have a gravestone installed and he explained the procedure for that. I thanked him and let him go on his way.
As I stood by Shauneen’s grave and surveyed the cemetery and its expansive view of the Fraser River, I felt excited and mightily relieved. Though unmarked, her plot was well groomed, and placed alongside other children’s. Though difficult to find, it was on record and not completely erased. Here she was at last – rediscovered over sixty years after her death. After strolling through the cemetery for a while, I returned to the office to ask if Jim would show me Shauneen’s entry in the cemetery ledger. He looked hesitant but opened the thick door of a large locked vault and hauled out a hefty, ancient-looking leather-bound ledger about five inches thick. He laid it on the counter and stood in front of it flipping pages, blocking my view, until he found the correct page, then turned to show it to me. There was Shauneen’s name – spelled absolutely correctly, to my surprise (no doubt misread by Jim) – written in neat cursive handwriting with the coordinates for her plot location clearly listed. (Jim also showed me the corresponding map of plots.) The large pages were printed template forms, with four handwritten entries to a page. With Jim’s permission I took photos to show Audrey (see Figure 21).
I also reflected on the experience of searching for Shauneen’s grave, and it struck me as odd that a city with such a strong identity as a historic colonial settlement did not have a more proactive and inviting approach to the cultural stewardship of its major cemetery. With oversight by the city’s engineering department and a groundskeeper for basic maintenance, it was missing an opportunity to invite the surrounding community to explore and engage in its historical heritage.40 This approach stood out in contrast to Vancouver’s Mountain View Cemetery, which has undertaken a lively artistic program of community engagement and collaboration over the last decade (Todd 2008).
40 Much of New Westminster’s “heritage” activity is spearheaded by the city’s library and archives. Two independent New Westminster historians (Archie & Dale Miller, Sense of History) have conducted historical walking tours of New Westminster cemeteries (though not including the provincially owned and funded Woodlands cemetery) and contribute material on the city’s cemeteries to the Heritage website of the New Westminster Public Library.
Figure 21. Fraser Cemetery ledger page
Photo: Author, July 2012
I called Audrey as soon as I got home, and when I told her I had found
Shauneen’s grave, she asked me to pause so she could call her daughter Chrissy, who was visiting with her daughter, and get her on the extension phone. As I began to tell her the sequence of the day’s events, she interrupted anxiously with, “Now, are you going to tell me something good?” and I said “Yes!” When I described finding the site, she was so excited, she commented, “You realize you’re going to have to tell me all this again!” I assured her I would write it all up and send her the notes.
She was thrilled to learn that the family could place a stone there and thanked me profusely for going to see the grave first, as she would have been overcome with grief and disappointment to find a neglected site. We left off the call with plans to get in touch in a week or so to arrange a visit to the cemetery together.