Monument Analysis

For our monument analysis we chose to head to Ross Bay Cemetery. After doing a quick walk through of different parts of the cemetery we ended up using 14 monuments from what was a small part of the Anglican section. These monuments were a mixture of family plots and single burials, all created around the late 19th to early 20th century. All of our chosen monuments were spaced relatively close together although many of the family plots were marked off by a stone boundary line to indicated their space. None were kept up in recent years, indicating that remaining family lineages have moved on or are unaware of their presence. This made reading many of the inscriptions difficult. 


Research question 1:
 Notice the differences in the dates of the standing monuments and the flat stones for individual burials (and even monument 6, which is standing but much simpler than the other standing ones, and has a similar date to the flat ones). What  happened in this time gap of about 40 years that could have changed attitudes towards, and therefore practices surrounding, death and burial? Do you think these changes could simply be attributed to the passing of time?


Answer: 
These changes might indicate a gradual shift in funerary preferences. The standing family monuments that occurred roughly in our monuments between 1880- 1900, were large marked plots that often had more details inscribed on them. This includes, on many occasions, a quote from a religious passage. 

These can be compared to the individual burials that used flat stones, also made within the same 20 year time period of 1880- 1900. 

This grave in particular is curious because the deceased(June Casmir Ragazzoni) died at the young age of 21 in the year 1885. The year of her death strikes very closely to a number of other deaths within our monuments accuring between 1880-1885, all of young adults or children. June's grave was one not marked by the stone boundary line, perhaps indicating an unprepared family not from the area(her name itself was an outlier within the Anglican cemetery).  Though it was a flat stone, this grave marker was more elaborate then the ones seen even just 40 years later. 

Many of the grave stones seen after 1900 (except in burials where family large standing stones were already in place) the design is more simple in both standing and flat monuments. This made me think back to our lecture on the Victoria cemeteries in Cambridgeshire where Dr. Aubrey Cannon's work was discussed(McGuire, 2012). Although his observations were taking place from graves around roughly the same time period, the grave stones would be from a different culture, economic, and historical standing. But to get an idea of where to start it is very helpful. The flat stone monuments would be assumed cheaper than the larger more elaborate standing ones in the 1880s and before. Perhaps as time went on it was considered more ostentatious to make them so decorated. Much like in Cannon's Victorian grave markers there might have been an elite class that set the trend for the styles of the monuments. More intense research would be needed to know the local culture between the late 1800s and the early 1900s. It would also be beneficial to compare the designs and inscriptions from the same time period in the Catholic or Jewish part of the cemetery. 


Research Question 2:
For monument 1, the dates of the deaths of younger (under 20 years old) family members are close together (1884-5). Could something specific (e.g. disease, etc.) have happened to these individuals that could have caused their deaths to occur so close together?


Monument 1: 

Answer:
This was the monument that fascinated me the most. It was a grave stone that was shared by two families: the Leigh's and the Holloway's. The plot itself was surrounded by the stone boundary line and was marked by the name Holloway. It is assumed that the families are related. Several children(ages 16months-16years) and young adults of the family( ages 20-30) died within the years of 1884-5, but within different months of those years. My group and I wondered what could have been the cause of their death, especially considering our other monuments with several young people dying around the same years. We are assuming disease, maybe there was an outbreak at that time. From this it would make sense that there would also be numerous graves of elderly people as well from this time period, as disease often affects the young and the old. These elderly graves might be harder to distinguish than the graves of children or younger adults because the typical age of people most often found in cemeteries is that of an older age bracket. To make an accurate analysis, more in-depth research will need to be done on the history of the area and maybe the history of the families as well if possible. 


Works Cited:


McGuire, E., 2012. Anth392StatusHandouts2, University of Victoria. Moodle. [Accessed date 19 February 2012).