The Rural Voice, 2003-01, Page 30open well — both stories that the
mourning pioneer families requested
be carved in stone.
The monument for the family of
my great. great aunt and uncle's
family seems to stand-alone with no
stones nearby. In fact. the entire
family. including eight children. was
laid to rest together after succumbing
to a disease epidemic in the 1870s.
And of course. the stories bring them
to life as I imagine the story told to
me of how the father might have
survived, but could not be stopped
from comforting his last ailing
daughter with a kiss. Certainly,
cemeteries are a place to mourn and
remember as well as to cherish. but
they are also a place to contemplate
and to learn — an open-air library of
sorts.
The landscape of cemeteries also
displays craft and art. from the use of
local field stones to the symbolism of
elaborate carvings in dedication of
loved ones. One of my favourites is a
monument of a boy's pet dog that
can be found beside the grave of a
10 -year-old boy in Evergreen
Cemetery in my wife's hometown of
Blenheim. Ontario. The story has it
that after the boy died of diphtheria
in 1898, his dog stayed in vigil at his
master's grave and refused all food
and water until it too died 10 days
later. According to the legend, the
Taking double dating and mysteries to the grave
There are still other gravestone
mysteries to be solved. An
uncle of mine put me onto a
stone at Saint Andrew's Church in
Fergus. near Guelph. The stone,
now housed inside the church, is
inscribed with an impossible date of
death. that of February 30th, 1854.
No one at the church really
knows if this was a careless
stonecutter or perhaps simply a joke
left for us to ponder. While we'll
never know for sure. perhaps
another theory worth putting
forward is that Mr. McGillivray and
the stonecutter might have been
right all along! Heck. you can find
old gravestones that properly record
the death of the same individual
taking place in two different years!
First of all. many changes in the
calendar system (even in the last few
hundred years) has meant that what
the common folk recognized as the
date did not always jibe with what
the officials had to say about it.
Once upon a time February did have
30 days. Before more modern
systems of leap years, Caesar
reportedly once ordered that "the
first. third. fifth. seventh, ninth, and
eleventh months should have thirty-
one days, and the other months
thirty. excepting February, which in
common years should have twenty-
nine days. but every fourth year
thirty days." While the people could
now count 30 days in February, the
official proclamation was that the
30th day in essence not really be
'counted", but rather "inserted
between the 24th and 25th day" and
be called the "bis-sexto calendas". 1
can't help but ask, which way would
you keep count?
In more recent centuries, what
one recognized as the "proper" date
might depend on whether one
MIED
Feb. ZIP, 1844;
E. 41 Yrs.
A native of Nairnshire,
!SCOTLAND.
The mystery remains. According to
his stone, Robert McGillivray died
on the impossible date of February
30th. Maybe it was a joke, an
honest mistake by his stone carver,
or just maybe they were right!
listened to the Pope or the English
Parliament. In 1582 the Pope
reformed the calendar by directing
that October 4th, 1582, be followed
by October 15th in order to
eliminate a 10 -day discrepancy that
had grown since Caesar's time
between the solar and lunar
calendars. Many followed the
Pope's instruction, but not in
English colonies that waited until
the English Parliament finally made
a similar adjustment in 1752,
announcing to their subjects that
September 2nd, 1752 would be
followed by September 14th — by
then the discrepancy had grown by
another day. It is said that at the time
many people changed their birthday
by adding 11 days to it so that they
might celebrate it on the "actual"
anniversary. I'd bet some added 12.
Regardless, what would be your
choice: a birthday based on the "old
system" or one based on the "new
system"?
Now to add to the confusion, the
1752 English Parliament also moved
the official start of the New Year
from March 25th to January 1st.
This now gave people two different
years to choose from when referring
to prior year's dates between
January 1st and March 25th
Accordingly, George Washington, a
British subject at the time, could
rightly claim he was not only born
on the 1 1 th of February AND the
2nd of February, but also he could
rightly claim he was also born in
1731 AND in 1732! And that is why
— "to avoid confusion" — that
some old gravestones record two
dates of death: one under the "old"
system AND one under the "new".
So perhaps Mr. McGillivray and
his stonecutter were right with
February 30th too, which might
explain why there is no clarification
to be found in the church or
cemetery registries either. While
we'll never know for sure, 1 still
personally prefer sticking with the
theory that it was a well -laid joke
that will continue to haunt us.
One thing is for sure, if you are
the least bit confused by the above
discussion on calendars — or have
ever been the least bit resistant to
change — then undoubtedly our
ancestors, whether they be from the
Wicklow mountains of Ireland or the
Highland areas of Scotland would
have been too! Besides, I'm sure
their lives were more closely tied to
nature and its seasons than they
were to any official calendar of
dates.0
26 THE RURAL VOICE