THE BEECHWOOD WAY
BEECHWOOD, THE NATIONAL CEMETERY OF CANADA
Photo: Frank Scheme
Former Minister Jim Prentice, Beechwood’s Grete Hale and MP Mauril Bélanger at the ceremony announcing Beechwood’s designation as the National Cemetery of Canada.
How Beechwood became the National Cemetery
Robert White
Director,
The Beechwood Cemetery Foundation
O
nce in a while parliamentarians
from all parties come together in
unanimous agreement for the betterment of Canada. The creation of Beechwood as the National Cemetery of Canada is one such example.
The original initiative to make Beechwood Canada’s national cemetery was the
brainchild of Mauril Bélanger, the Liberal
Member of Parliament for OttawaVanier who, in early 2007, introduced a
private members bill to this effect. At that
time, he asked two of his Ottawa colleagues, Conservative MP Royal Galipeau
and NDP MP Paul Dewar, for their support and they both agreed immediately.
While this bill died on the order paper,
the idea was kept alive largely through
the continued efforts of Mr. Bélanger
working behind the scenes.
This brings us to March 5, 2009 when
Environment Minister and Minister for
Parks Canada Jim Prentice introduced a
government bill to recognize Beechwood
as the National Cemetery of Canada. The
following day, the bill was debated and
approved by the House of Commons. In introducing the Bill,
Conservative House Leader Jay
Hill stated: “I would like to take
a quick moment to thank my
colleagues and the other parties
for their cooperation in expedit-
ing this legislation. This is a clear demonstration of how Parliament can work
when we have set aside our partisan differences and work for the good of the
Canadian people, who have entrusted us
to represent them.”
Members from all parties spoke in support of the Bill, including Royal Galipeau (Conservative), Mauril Bélanger
(Liberal), Richard Nadeau (Bloc québécois) and Paul Dewar (NDP). The full
text of their speeches can be retrieved
very easily on the Internet through
“House of Commons Debates, Friday,
March 6, 2009”. In mid-March the Bill
was debated in the Senate and quickly
approved. It received Royal Assent on
April 22, 2009.
While there were a number of extremely strong, heart-felt speeches in support of this Bill, I believe that Liberal
Senator Jim Munson’s speech, the high(See “National Cemetery” on page 5)
The Beechwood Way
Published by The Beechwood Cemetery Foundation
Volume 11, Issue 40
Royston reaches beyond the grave to help his forgotten friend
John D. Reid
Canada’s Anglo-Celtic Connections
T
here are 211 Commonwealth
War Graves Commission (CWGC)
casualties with an official headstone
at Beechwood Cemetery. Soon there
will be one more. I’ve been marking
the deaths of First World War soldiers buried at Beechwood with a series of articles in my Canada’s AngloCeltic Connections blog. Each is
posted a century after the death.
Private W. John Royston, a Home
Child, age 20, of Ottawa’s 43rd Regiment, Canadian Militia, is the fifth
soldier commemorated at Beechwood.
He died on 10 August 1915, barely
two weeks after having enlisted in the
77th Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force.
Newspapers recorded that Royston
drowned in the Ottawa River while
swimming at the foot of Kent Street.
His body was not found until the 13 th
and buried later the same day.
Between Friends
Ian Guthrie
Friends of Beechwood
O
n October 9, the Friday before
Thanksgiving, a group of family,
friends and colleagues of Thomas
Ritchie gathered at Beechwood to remember a remarkable person who had
died a year previously in 2014. Tom was
a Canadian of considerable achievements: WWII RCAF Veteran, engineer,
author, historian (as was noted in two
editions of THE BEECHWOOD
WAY). He was a regular contributor of
biographies to our newsletter, articles
which he had ‘banked’ and will continue to appear.
The group was addressed by Jacques
Faille on behalf of Beechwood Friends
Volume 11, Issue 40
found a record of John Kenneth
McLean’s arrival in Canada on RMS
Virginian in June 1913, age 16, giving
his occupation as clerk. A possible UK
1901 census entry in Islington, London shows his mother Alice, a 33-year
-old widow, and his younger sister
Constance.
Finally Library and Archives Canada was able to confirm McLean’s
service in the 43rd using other sources
satisfactory to the CWGC. McLean
will be added to their database and an
official gravestone erected at Beechwood.
Finding a newspaper mention of
McLean while searching for Royston
was as if he was reaching out to help
his friend. He was forgotten, but even
after a century “Lest We Forget” continues to mean something.
Both the Ottawa Citizen and the Ottawa Journal reported that Private
John Kenneth McLean also died while
swimming with his friend.
Although identified as a soldier in
the newspaper, burial and provincial
death records, McLean is not included
in military war death records. Neither
he nor Royston have a CEF attestation paper or service file. But, unlike
Royston, McLean had no headstone,
no entry in the CWGC database, no
mention in the Canadian Virtual War
Memorial, nor in the book of Remembrance in the Peace Tower. Why
commemorate the one and not the
other? The Commemoration Division
of Veterans Affairs Canada was notified and they informed the CWGC.
It took over a year to satisfy the
CWGC. Newspaper reports and the
Beechwood records showing Royston
and McLean buried together in a
grave owned by the Department of
Militia and Defence were not sufficient evidence. In the meantime I
John’s blog, Canada’s Anglo-Celtic Connections, has further reading about
Beechwood’s First World War soldier
burials, and much more. Visit it at
www.anglo-celtic-connections.blogspot.ca/
who spoke of Tom’s wry sense of humour and ‘addiction’ to chocolate;
Wesley Boston, Tom’s son-in-law who
described him as a dedicated family man
and enthusiastic cottager; and Colin,
Tom’s son, who listed some of his father’s achievements during a long career
at the National Research Council. Karen
Dickenson, a granddaughter of Tom,
concluded the gathering by reading appropriate poetry and then unveiling a
plaque dedicated to Tom beside a tree
in front of the Beechwood Mausoleum,
a building whose architecture Tom
greatly admired.
Those who knew Tom miss him
greatly but he left us with an immense
treasure of memories of a life fully lived,
memories which will live on in us for
many decades. We have been fortunate
to have known such a fine person.
It was a suitable October afternoon,
cool but not cold, a watery sun through
thin clouds, some leaves on the trees
while others blew across the ground in
front of a gentle breeze, as we gathered
to remember Tom.
In my earlier years a ‘text’ was a
weighty book hauled home from school
or a short piece of sacred writing to be
used as the introduction to or basis for a
homily. More recent years have seen the
word used more widely - a text can be a
building, a landscape or person who or
which can reveal or teach us about a
previous time. And so I approach Section 34, one of the oldest sections in
Beechwood, and will use it in the next
edition of The Beechwood Way as a text
to reveal something of our city and those
who lived here in an earlier epoch. Next
time, my text is Section 34!
2
Winter 2016
Dr. Montizambert helped in establishing the Department of Health
Historical Portraits Book
The Beechwood Cemetery Foundation
F
rederick Montizambert was born
on February 3, 1843 in Quebec City.
The family was well-to-do, being part of
the Quebec administrative and judicial
upper middle class for several generations: in 1862 his father, lawyer Edward
Lewis Montizambert, was appointed law
clerk to the Legislative Council of Lower
Canada, and in 1867 joined the Senate.
Montizambert’s maternal grandfather,
Edward Bowen, was chief justice of the
Superior Court of Lower Canada.
Montizambert studied medicine at
Laval University from 1859 to 1861
after which he travelled to Scotland for a
three-year post-graduate training in
clinical medicine at the prestigious Faculty of Medicine of the University of
Edinburgh. There he specialized in surgery and obstetrics. In the winter of
1891 he spent two months at John
Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD
where he studied the bacteria of cholera
and other contagious diseases.
He returned to Quebec in 1865 where
he married Mary Jane Walker, and in
1866 Montizambert was hired as assistant physician at the quarantine station
on Grosse Île in the St. Lawrence River.
His role at the station was exhausting –
he was required to board each passing
ship and examine all passengers for signs
of infectious disease, which could run
rampant at the time and were a real danger. The station, opened originally in
1832 as a result of a cholera epidemic,
had already dealt with the massive emigration of Irish fleeing the potato famine
and a deadly outbreak of typhus in the
late 1840s.
In 1869 Montizambert, then just 26
years old, applied for and obtained the
important position of medical director
at Grosse Île. Laid out before him was
no small task: to put in place a modern,
Winter 2016
Credit: Public Works Dept. / Library and Archives Canada / PA-046791
This photo, taken ca. 1900, shows a brick hospital, one of the newer permanent structures built on
Grosse Île under Montizambert’s leadership.
efficient, fast, and permanent quarantine
system to replace the dilapidated and
rudimentary wooden huts. This was all
the more urgent because Canada needed
a great number of immigrants to populate and develop the country, at a time
when there were an increasing number
of contagious (and more virulent) diseases these immigrants could bring with
them from all corners of the world.
For the next thirty years, Montizambert worked tirelessly to bring Grosse Île
to the forefront of North American
quarantine stations. He had the facilities
rebuilt, completely overhauled the existing quarantine regulations and ensured
that reception and service were brought
into line with the steamship age. At his
initiative, Grosse Île station radically
altered the scientific approach taken
towards identifying and dealing with
diseases. In 1892 a bacteriological laboratory was built, both to allow staff on
the island to quickly identify what diseases they were dealing with and to determine those infections which were less
serious and could be dealt with at Quebec.
Montizambert’s role as superintendent
gave him the opportunity to turn the
station into a model of its type whose
influence extended throughout the
country, even to the United States and
3
Credit: Topley Studio / Library and Archives Canada
A young Montizambert, taken in March 1869 at
the Topley Studio in Ottawa.
Europe. When he took up this position,
he put in place scientific concepts and
principles which would revolutionize
the struggle against infectious diseases
during the last two decades of the 19th
century, and herald the introduction of
modern health programmes. Dr. Montizambert’s innovative quarantine methods, based on the knowledge of the
newly discovered microbes and their
relationship to contagion, succeeded in
reducing morbidity and mortality
among the vulnerable newcomers.
(See “Montizambert” on page 5)
Volume 11, Issue 40
Set in Stone: Carmen Jolicoeur and her love of Spanish dancing
The late Thomas Ritchie
Friends of Beechwood
T
he Joy of Dance, created in
bronze by sculptor D.E. McDermott,
portrays a graceful dancer and marks
the grave of Carmen Jolicoeur whose
life was, in large part, devoted to dancing and the teaching of dancing. The
granite base is inscribed with words
spoken by Juliet in a Shakespearean
play: “Parting is such sweet sorrow, that
I shall say goodnight till it be morrow”.
Carmen Jolicoeur was born in 1926
in Costa Rica, her father George Gallagher, a civil engineer, her mother
Manolita, a language teacher from
whom Carmen learned English, French
and Spanish. When Carmen was four
years old the family moved to Montreal
where her education included attendance at the Montreal School of Fine
Arts which awarded her a degree. Another part of her schooling, from age
eight, was training in ballet dancing and
for several years she performed with a
ballet company.
At age 22 Carmen was awarded a four
-year bursary by the Spanish government which provided travel to Spain
and lessons in Spanish dance. In that
country she developed a great interest in
and aptitude for flamenco dancing,
which is usually associated with passionate singing and guitar-playing,
along with rhythmic dancing and the
clicking of castanets. After two years in
Spain, Carmen’s flamenco talents and
skills were recognized and she became a
Source: The Ottawa Citizen
Source: Wikipedia
As Carmen Cortez, Jolicoeur established her own
dance company in Montreal, and was called upon
for radio and television appearances.
While in Spain, Carmen Jolicoeur performed
flamenco dances at the historic Teatro Fontalba
in Madrid.
performer in a Madrid theater, but she
also danced with a ballet company that
toured Scandinavia, Britain, France and
Italy.
On a holiday visit to Canada in 1953
Carmen met and later that year married
Paul Jolicoeur. In Montreal she took
the stage name Carmen Cortez and established her own dance company, consisting of two guitarists, a singer, a pianist and 20 dancers. In addition to her
performances with the company, Carmen was called upon for radio and television appearances.
In 1973 the Jolicoeur family moved
to Ottawa where Carmen’s second career in dancing began, that of teacher.
Her early background in ballet qualified
her to teach that form of dancing at the
Classical Ballet School of Ottawa, but
she taught, instead, Spanish dancing,
the first person to do so in Canada.
Jolicoeur also worked in the theatre,
choreographing flamenco dance routines for various theatres, including
Theatre Triangle Vital in Montreal.
Her career as a teacher lasted for more
than a decade before she had to retire
due to ill health which caused her death
on October 10, 1998. The graceful
dancing figure over the grave of Carmen Jolicoeur in Beechwood’s Section
51 South, Lot 1271 symbolizes an important part of her life.
The Beechwood Cemetery Foundation is looking for old photographs of
Beechwood Cemetery’s buildings and grounds
Could you have some hiding in your family’s old photo albums?
Tucked away in a box in the attic? We would love to take high-quality scans
of your photos, as sadly we don’t have many of our own!
Contact Nicole at 613-741-9530 ext 121 or at [email protected]
Volume 11, Issue 40
4
Winter 2016
National Cemetery (cont’d)
lights of which appear below, captures
perfectly the sentiments of all parliamentarians associated with the passage of this
bill:
“Honourable senators, every once in a
while something happens in Parliament
that makes me very proud. Last week was
one of those moments. Last week, we saw
four parties in the other place [House of
Commons] come together and unanimously consent to expedite passage of the
proposed national cemetery of Canada
act, which recognizes Beechwood Cemetery as a national cemetery.
“I was there for the ceremony [at
Beechwood], and it was beautiful. Many
of you are perhaps acquainted with this
space — acres and acres of rolling land,
forest, beautiful landscaping, views and
monuments… Take a walk there sometime and you will find peace. Take a walk
there sometime and you will also find
history. This cemetery, for more than a
century, has become the final resting
place for 75,000 Canadians, all of whom,
in their own way, have contributed to the
great project of nation building… You
will find a sacred space that pays tribute
to this nation’s tremendous ethnic and
cultural diversity. This is a place that recognizes our two official languages.
“By creating this national cemetery, we
are honouring the past and preparing for
the future. We are ensuring that this sa-
Montizambert (cont’d)
In 1884, Montizambert was appointed superintendent of all Canadian
quarantine stations, after which he
brought other stations (in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and British Columbia) up to the same standards as GrossÎle. In 1899 he was appointed to the
prestigious post of the first federal Director General of Public Health in Canada. He retired in 1920.
Outside of his career in the civil service, Montizambert was ever busy. In
Winter 2016
Second Session, Fortieth Parliament,
57-58 Elizabeth II, 2009
Deuxième session, quarantième législature,
57-58 Elizabeth II, 2009
STATUTES OF CANADA 2009
LOIS DU CANADA (2009)
CHAPTER 5
CHAPITRE 5
An Act to recognize Beechwood Cemetery as the
national cemetery of Canada
Loi reconnaissant le Cimetière Beechwood comme le
cimetière national du Canada
ASSENTED TO
SANCTIONNÉE
23RD APRIL, 2009
BILL C017
LE 23 AVRIL 2009
PROJECT DE LOI C-17
The cover page of Bill C-17, an Act of Parliament to recognize Beechwood the national cemetery of Canada
cred space will be there in perpetuity.
“On the other side [House of Commons], the first bill to create this cemetery was introduced by the Member of
Parliament for Ottawa-Vanier, Mauril
Bélanger, who quickly found support
from other Ottawa members of Parliament and from all parties. With such
evident support, the bill went into the
hands of Minister Prentice, Minister for
the Environment, to become a government bill. It passed unanimously in one
day.
“Honourable senators, I hope that we
can do the same in his chamber. I hope
the spirit of collaboration will guide us so
that we can pass this bill and make it law
to create a place in the heart of this city,
in the heart of this nation, where we
pause to honour those who have come
before us to serve, to innovate, to delight,
to fight, to protect — in short, to live
their lives as Canadians.
“Beechwood Cemetery, the proposed
national cemetery of Canada, will be the
place for us to honour those extraordinary and ordinary people who have come
before us. It is a beautiful place where we
can find peace and find history for evermore.”
1867 he joined the Canadian Medical
Association and was its president from
1907 to 1908. In 1890, he was elected
President of the American Public Health
Association. He was made Companion
of the Imperial Service Order in 1903
and a Companion of the Order of St
Michael and St George in 1916. While
pursuing his passion for scientific and
technical advances, he participated in
the development of a revolutionary
treatment for leprosy. As a representative
of the Canadian Medical Association,
Dr. Montizambert succeeded, in 1919,
in convincing the Federal Government
to establish the Canadian Department
of Health. In 2001, he was inducted
into the Canadian Medical hall of Fame.
Montizambert played a pioneering
role in the fields of bacteriology and
epidemiology. A forceful advocate of
preventive medicine, disinfection and
vaccination, he worked to protect Canadians from the many, often fatal contagious diseases then prevalent around the
world. He died on November 2, 1929 at
the age of 86. His grave is in Section 41,
Lot 40.
5
Robert (Bob) White has been a member
of the Board at Beechwood since 1992
(pre-dating the creation of The Beechwood Cemetery Foundation). He has
also written about how Beechwood
became the home of the National Military Cemetery of the Canadian Forces.
His article can be found on our website,
at http://www.beechwoodottawa.ca/
about-us/news-media/, under Historical Articles and Documents.
Volume 11, Issue 40
By the ‘Way’…Facts from the Company Minutes
Mark Sunderland
Friends of Beechwood
Editor’s Note: The subsequent text is an embellishment of the only sentence in the December 1925
minutes. Our Mr. Sunderland is nothing if not creative!
T
he winter of ‘25 was bitterly cold,
and in deference to the board the superintendent invited all members to convene for
the December meeting at his parlor fireside.
He always had things that he wanted to
burn and since Mr. Foord (the landscape
architect) had torn out a large parcel of
Beechwood for the Mausoleum there was
no shortage of firewood.
The board convened and the superintendent opened the meeting by introducing a
special guest, Mr. Edwin Pepys. Mr. Pepys
(pronounced “Peeps” and affectionately
known as “Peepers”) was the owner/
operator of Pepys & Co., a family undertaking business. As an undertaker*, Pepys was
generally considered to be one of the best.
He was always impeccably dressed for work
and was forever ready, at the drop of a top
hat, to receive a loved one.
Edwin and wife Myrtle were pillars of
their community. They tended the sick and
cared for the needy, they gave munificently
to the public library and, at the funeral of a
friendless loved one, Myrtle and all the little
peepers would gather at the chapel to weep
and wail.
In addition to his beautifully polished
hearses, Pepys had a fleet of carriages and
wagons for social and service use. At weddings and community functions, his own
troupe (“The Peepettes”) was regularly hired
for entertainment and whatever the rite of
passage Pepys & Co. could supply grief, joy
and solemnity as desired.
But enough, Pepys was not present to
promote his services but to petition on behalf of his grief-laden clients. He had long
believed that the combination of frigid conditions and deep mourning was detrimental
to the human heart. He had no scientific
evidence to corroborate his belief but during
the winter of ‘24 he had been called on several occasions to resuscitate mourners who
had succumbed to low temperature aversion, or LTA as he called it. He concluded
that the combined reaction to emotional
and physical strain would be greatly reduced
if Beechwood’s chapel could be heated.
As the board sat around the fire in the
super’s parlor, they tried to imagine sitting
in an unheated chapel. There were deliberations over whether or not the chapel had
ever been heated and if so, by what means.
The superintendent said there was a boiler
that could raise the temperature from freezing to comfort level but to do so would require him to first find the stokers who could
understand it. Mr. Dewar, a young student
of science, said he would be pleased to look
at the boiler with a couple of like-minded
friends. “Never mind looking at the bloody
thing” barked Pepys, “find someone who
can understand it and fix it.”
To the ears of the board, such uncommonly strong words from the mouth of an
undertaker had to be taken seriously. A motion was passed to find a contractor who
could understand the boiler and report on
its operation to the superintendent. All city
undertakers would notify the cemetery office no later than ten o’clock on the day of a
funeral. The superintendent would then
find the stokers who understood the boiler
and raise the temperature from freezing to a
suitable level for mourning.
* “Undertaker” was a word that was used generically until the early part of the twentieth century - it was applied
to a variety of trades people and the particular tasks they undertook. Carpenters usually undertook funerals
because they could also make coffins.
As undertakers became increasingly associated with funerals they wanted to distance themselves from, for
example, the undertakers who undertook to clean chimneys. Similarly, the chimney sweep didn’t necessarily
want the association with funerals. The solution was to invent the funeral director and, with a gentleman’s agreement, both the chimney sweep and the funeral director agreed that top hats could remain in their dress code.
The Beechwood Cemetery Foundation Board of Directors
General (ret’d) Maurice Baril, Chair; Carol Beal; RCMP A/Commr. (ret’d) Ghyslaine Clément;
Stephen Gallagher; Cathy Gray; Ian Guthrie; Bill Johnson; RCMP D/Commr. (ret’d) Tim Killam;
Brigadier General (ret’d) Gerald E. Peddle; David Wallace; Richard Wagner; Robert White
Volume 11, Issue 40
6
Upcoming special events
Bereaved Families of Ottawa’s Annual
Butterfly Walk to Remember
Beechwood National Memorial Centre
Sunday, May 29, 1:30pm
Order butterflies: 613-567-4278
National Memorial Ride
National Military Cemetery
Sunday, June 5, 2:00pm
Annual Historical Tour: Policing
Beechwood National Memorial Centre
Sunday, June 12, 2:00pm
Published quarterly by the
Executive Director: Roger Boult
Editor: Jacques Faille
Design editor: Nicole Bedard
French translation: Jean-Luc Malherbe
Contributors: Robert White, John D. Reid, Ian
Guthrie, Thomas Ritchie and Mark Sunderland
ISSN 2368-545X, 2368-5468
THE BEECHWOOD WAY newsletter is a free,
independent publication and, unless otherwise
clearly stated, its articles imply no endorsement
of any product or service.
The Beechwood Cemetery Foundation is a
registered Canadian charity, and will issue an
income tax receipt for donations of $20 or more.
Registration number 88811 2018 RR0001.
How to contact us:
E-mail: [email protected]
Phone: (613) 741-9530
Mail: THE BEECHWOOD WAY
280 Beechwood Ave, PO Box 7025
Ottawa ON K1L 8E2
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by email in an electronic format.
Visit us online to learn more about Beechwood,
the National Cemetery of Canada and read back
issues of THE BEECHWOOD WAY at:
www.beechwoodottawa.ca
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Contact Jacques Faille at [email protected]
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Winter 2016