Grave marker missing? Maybe
CTV reports on a man claiming his grandfather’s tombstone is missing from Notre‑Dame‑des‑Neiges.
I very much doubt it was made off with by thieves. As noted in this discussion on the blog from March this year, sometimes the contract runs out and the cemetery legally removes a headstone. The article says the man had not been there since 2015 and if his situation is like mine, his name and contact info are not connected with the grave by the NDN office.
The other possibility is that he made a mistake over the number or couldn’t find it. I’ve done a certain amount of sleuthing up there for myself and others. While the plots and stones are all numbered, they’re not always in order. Sometimes the sequence breaks off, then resumes somewhere else that isn’t obvious.
I recall some accounts of thefts in the cemeteries here, but these have been of notable statuary on grand gravesites. Nobody is going to steal an ordinary block of gray granite.
JS 09:35 on 2023-09-19 Permalink
I was wandering near the maintenance section of the NDN cemetery a few years ago, and in a forested section down a hill behind it there were a bunch of discarded tombstones. I can’t remember exactly but I don’t think they were that old.
Orr 20:08 on 2023-09-20 Permalink
In tombstone related items, I paid to have my great-great grandparents, great-grandparents, and grandmother’s tombstone (located in a rural-Quebec graveyard) straightened and cleaned.
My partner was really not into a rural Quebec village graveyard so we have a plot on top of Mont Royal. I’d say I’m looking forward to being up there, but…
Ian 11:14 on 2023-09-21 Permalink
There’s no way I could ever afford a plot on the mountain but I’m donating my body to science – there’s at least a collective memorial for people who have done so in Mt-Royal cemetery.
I’d rather be part of the bucket of knuckles for anatomy classes than stuck in the dirt in rural Quebec.
Kate 12:40 on 2023-09-21 Permalink
Ian, I was interested in the recent news about an ecological cemetery opening in Ste‑Sophie, but there wasn’t anything about the cost.
Orr, this is one of the stones in my family. It’s in Notre-Dame-des-Neiges. Two of my great-great-grandparents are buried here. I inquired into the cost of pulling the stone up and resetting it, but it would cost a minimum $2000 and I don’t have the cash to spare for the purpose.
I would not be buried in this spot anyway.