I learned recently that my great grandparents were buried in a cemetery above West Vancouver (CapilanoView) But like any fact gleaned from the internet I felt I needed to see it to believe it.
So today, I struck out by bike, over Lions Gate Bridge to see if this was true. The ride was easier and shorter than I’d expected, although it felt like the last leg was straight up hill.
When I arrived at the cemetery, I was struck by feelings of calm and tranquility. I headed to the office, and was initially dismayed to see a ‘Office Closed due to Covid’ sign out front. After a moment of imagining myself searching through the many rows of headstones, I realized there were people in the office and the office phone number was included on the ‘Closed’ sign.
As I began fumbling to take out my phone, an employee came out of the office with a smile and said ‘Let me save you a phone call.’ I laughed a grateful laugh, and then told him ‘I think my great grandparents are buried here’. He took down their names and went back into the office. Before disappearing into the office, he asked me my name, and told me his was Clayton.
Moments later, he came back out with a clip board and said ‘Good news, your relatives are resting here.’
I liked his choice of word (resting) more than my crude choice. (buried)
He showed me the sheet on his clipboard that seemed to be a grid of random numbers. They weren’t in any discernible order, but he put his finger on the square marked ’25’.
He explained each square represented 4 (or was it 8?) plots and so we first needed to go 8 rows in. I didn’t really understand, but followed him as he started walking across the grass covered in orderly rows of head stones. I was momentarily mortified as I’d always thought you were not supposed to walk on graves. But if Clayton could do it so could I. Onwards!
After getting to the 8th row, Clayton again consulted his grid of random squares and appeared ready to start the next phase of the search. ‘Now it should be somewhere in this row…oh it’s right here.’
Sure enough right at our feet was the head stone of Thomas and Catherine R. Deas. It included the requisite dates, as well as their respective places of birth. Also, bookending the family name Deas, at the top of the stone were two Scottish thistles. I immediately thought of my grandfather Jack (their eldest son) and his favourite mock admonishment. ‘You’re being a bit of a thistle!’
At this point I wasn’t sure what to do. Clayton had left me. I first brushed a few pieces of grass from the headstone. I then ran through an internal slide show of the various pictures I’d seen of these two people. I then thought of all the wonderful people I knew who had descended from them. In the end, I felt grateful to be part of the tree of descendants of these two people.
