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Once Upon a Tomb: Stories From Canadian Graveyards
Graveyards tell us a great deal about our country, as Nancy Millar discovered when she toured cemeteries across Canada to explore the history, mysteries, and stories found there. Here are stories about pioneers and settlers, missionaries and Native people, artists and politicians, and the ordinary people whose often unsung lives reveal so much about our past.
Millar highlights the "best" graveyards in each province, the most popular epitaphs, the most original gravemarkers, the most carefully guarded grave, the most poetic graveyard in the country, and much more. With more than ninety photographs, the book also provides interesting observations on graveyard architecture, Indian burial customs, and the variations in epitaphs among religions, genders, races, and provinces. So join Nancy Millar, Canada's Tombstone Tourist, for an engaging and unusual look at our history.
Millar highlights the "best" graveyards in each province, the most popular epitaphs, the most original gravemarkers, the most carefully guarded grave, the most poetic graveyard in the country, and much more. With more than ninety photographs, the book also provides interesting observations on graveyard architecture, Indian burial customs, and the variations in epitaphs among religions, genders, races, and provinces. So join Nancy Millar, Canada's Tombstone Tourist, for an engaging and unusual look at our history.
298 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 1996
29 people want to read
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February 11, 2019
This is an instantly-intriguing 1996 book, I am glad I discovered in a local thrift shop and hope my feedback gives it a spotlight. I give a solid four stars. This is the best of the best multicultural tour and very original history perspective; at an unbelievably complete scope. Nancy Millar did not compile newspaper articles. She toured graveyards in all ten of Canada’s provinces, as well as Yukon Territory! Even better: Nancy related her travels and travails to us as a personal story and managed the same, with the distinctly different provincial backgrounds that she wove together.
One thing no one can call “Once Upon A Tomb: Stories From Canadian Graveyards”, is “dry”. This is a valuable treasury on every front. Often things like board games, bird, or plant books are American- or English-geared. Everyone would enjoy Nancy’s one-of-a-kind treatise because every chapter is a condensed lesson in what each province is like. However, we relish coverage of our own homelands and I ensured that Manitoba received equal page time! I laughed hardest over a joke about our turf.
Hudson’s Bay founders deemed their résumés “honourable”; strangely abbreviated to “hon~ble”. Headstones were “chatty” about careers but not about wives and children. When explaining that employees left Aboriginal wives and their children, if they returned to England; I streamed tears in laughter at Nancy’s observation: “The “hon~ble” Hudson’s Bay men weren’t always so “hon~ble”!!!!”
Canadians of note, like our esteemed authoress Margaret Laurence and even Prime Ministers; only state dates. It is lovely that common people we might not have known, wrote their stories. Nowadays, markers give dates and a poetic line; which is fine, because records and statistics abound. How wonderful, that Nancy uncovered and corrected stories, from information etched in stone. This hilarious history tour is a winner!
One thing no one can call “Once Upon A Tomb: Stories From Canadian Graveyards”, is “dry”. This is a valuable treasury on every front. Often things like board games, bird, or plant books are American- or English-geared. Everyone would enjoy Nancy’s one-of-a-kind treatise because every chapter is a condensed lesson in what each province is like. However, we relish coverage of our own homelands and I ensured that Manitoba received equal page time! I laughed hardest over a joke about our turf.
Hudson’s Bay founders deemed their résumés “honourable”; strangely abbreviated to “hon~ble”. Headstones were “chatty” about careers but not about wives and children. When explaining that employees left Aboriginal wives and their children, if they returned to England; I streamed tears in laughter at Nancy’s observation: “The “hon~ble” Hudson’s Bay men weren’t always so “hon~ble”!!!!”
Canadians of note, like our esteemed authoress Margaret Laurence and even Prime Ministers; only state dates. It is lovely that common people we might not have known, wrote their stories. Nowadays, markers give dates and a poetic line; which is fine, because records and statistics abound. How wonderful, that Nancy uncovered and corrected stories, from information etched in stone. This hilarious history tour is a winner!
Displaying 1 of 1 review