Parishioners in the News
Al Lake got his picture in both Edmonton newspapers during the week of May 2, 2010
as he took part in the 100th Anniversary of the Canadian Navy celebrations.
(He is second from the right in the top picture and second from the left in the bottom picture)
November 11, 2009 - Edmonton Journal
86-and-a-half-year-old" Navy veteran Al Lake greets students
Tuesday during a Remembrance Day ceremony at Delton Elementary school.
October 29, 2009 - Edmonton Journal
George Custance, right, and other members of the Colour Party wait to march during the launch of the Greater Edmonton Poppy Fund campaign at Kingsway Legion in Edmonton, AB, on Oct. 29, 2009.
August 13, 2009 - St. Albert Gazette (By Ryan Tumilty Staff Writer)
RESTORING THE PAST
Volunteer John Matthews is heading up the Anglican Church of the Good Shepherd's efforts to restore the Poplar Lake Cemetery. Matthews, who is holding some of his research, has been working to try and identify whose remains occupy 18 graves identified by ground penetrating radar.
Secrets in the ground
After 80 years a rural prairie cemetery is being re-opened and long
neglected graves are being restored and remembered
In an isolated field on the
southern edge of the Edmonton Garrison, among prairie grasses and poplar trees
stands a lone monument to a family long since passed. Standing about seven feet
tall, the granite monument has stood through harsh Alberta winters and short
summers for nearly a century. The smooth rose-coloured pillar flares
outwards at the top, with a ring of permanently etched ivy and memorials to
three members of the Fielders family.
After decades of neglect and ill-fated maintenance efforts, the Fielders'
memorial is the only constant in the small Poplar Lake cemetery. Situated on the
corner of 82 Street and 195 Avenue, the site is nearing the end of a three-year
restoration project that will see it open to new burials for the first time in
80 years.
The pillar on the Fielders' memorial is divided into four panels - three panels
mark the lives of a mother, father and son who lived just two quarter-sections
south of the old cemetery, while the fourth was left blank. John Fielders,
the father died at 52 in June 1911 six months after his son John McDonald
Fielders who died at 22 in January 1911. Elizabeth Fielders survived until
1918, but having lost her son and husband and with another son fighting in
France the last years of her life were likely very difficult and her memorial
reads that way; "Safely anchored in the harbour of eternal
rest." The fourth spot was likely reserved though never taken by the
other son, who survived the war, but died within months of returning home.
The Anglican Church of the Good Shepherd has been working on the cemetery since
2006, slowly trying to restore it and trace the history of the people who were
buried there. John Matthews, a member of the church, said when he was
asked to help out he saw only one workable solution. "It has been a
maintenance problem for the diocese for a very long time," he said. "I
concluded the only way we could do a proper job on it, on a long term basis, was
to put it back into operation as a cemetery."
The first burial at the cemetery took place in 1898 and at the time there was
also a log cabin church, the Christ Church of Poplar Lake. The church
hobbled along for 20 years before closing, re-opening and then closing
permanently in 1926. Around 1941 it burned to the ground.
Small community
As part of the restoration project, volunteers brought in a ground penetrating
radar system that discovered 18 probable graves. Poplar Lake was once a
stop on a rail line between Edmonton and St. Albert. It had a school a short
distance from the church and a handful of families had homesteads nearby.
In researching the lives, deaths and burials, Matthews said he has formed an
idea of what Poplar Lake looked like. "Gradually a picture starts to
form. I can really start to form a picture of the community around
here." He said turn of the century Canada saw many communities spring
up on the vast open land, but not all survived. "Every railway stop
there was a potential to set up a mission and sometimes they remained and the
community grew and others didn't."
The radar survey found 16 graves in an east-west alignment in line with
Christian tradition and two oriented north-south. It also discovered that
under the Fielders' memorial, the cemetery's one immovable object, there are no
graves at all. Matthews said he believes it may have been put up well
after the father and son died and was meant to serve as a memorial for the
entire family. He believes in addition to the large memorial there would
have been more simple headstones for each member of the family, but nothing can
be said for certain. "I would think they are buried here,
somewhere."
Mysteries abound
After identifying the probable graves, each one was marked with a pair of black
triangles marking the head and foot.
The markers are numbered from one to 18 and Matthews doubts he will ever be able
to say precisely who is buried where. He has a rough sketch the Royal
Canadian Air Force drew during some previous attempt to restore the cemetery,
but it has no scale and doesn't come close to filling the gaps.
In addition to the Fielders' memorial only two other headstones have been left intact, though out of place. One is for Stella May Stoutenburg and her infant son Howard Carson Latimer, who died just two days before his mother. The other is for Rose Eleanor Swan, remembered as the beloved wife of Rev. Richard Michael Swan who was in charge of Christ Church and several others when his wife died. Matthew's research indicates Stoutenburg, whose married name was Latimer, may not even be buried at Poplar Lake, but in Ontario. He is also desperate for more information about Swan because the reverend was a key figure in keeping the church going. The headstones are out of place because at some point during a previous restoration effort, they were removed so the overgrowth could be cut back, but were not returned to their rightful place. "I don't know if they failed to mark where they took them from or if it just got left," said Matthews. He said the cemetery has been besieged by good intentions over the years. "One of the reasons that we had this mess was that people were trying to fix the mess, but it never quite got followed through." Either during the move or at some other point in the 80 years they have been in the ground several other headstones were damaged. One reads simply "Latimer" with no first name or any dates. The RCAF map Matthews found indicates there were several Latimers, but is scant on details. "As it stands now I have three people with just Latimer and no name or date and I would like to clear that up."
One headstone is even more
cryptic with just an age below a jagged crack where more details once
where. "Aged 38 or 39 years. This has been an anomaly for a very long
time to me. In all the surveys they have done with the dioceses and the
genealogical society, we have never given a name to that one."
Having exhausted all the resources he can think of, Matthews is now turning to
the public, hoping descendants, amateur historians or genealogy buffs might be
able to give names to the remaining graves.
Starting anew
He expects to hear soon that the cemetery has been given provincial approval to
reopen and can start new burials.
The two-acre plot has a lot of open space. Matthews said Poplar Lake is going to
maintain its character even as it accepts new burials. "It will come
with what you would expect from a rural cemetery. It is not your beautifully
manicured lot that you see in the city like a golf course or something."
The original 18 burials will be separated from the new plots and those that have
been identified will have new headstones marking their place. Matthews
believes over the long term more graves might be identified and more of the
answers revealed, but most importantly the cemetery will be maintained.
"I think we are on to something that is going to keep going."
More information on the restoration can be found at http://www.goodshepanglican.org/