St. Paul's Roman Catholic Church and Cemetery Monument Analysis

For our monument analysis assignment, our group decided to go to a cemetery outside of Victoria and its surrounding area. We chose to go to Salt Spring Island and check out a small cemetery near the Fulford Harbour ferry terminal. A short walk up the road is the cutest stone church on the whole island, in my opinion. The St. Paul's Roman Catholic church is the oldest church on Salt Spring Island, founded in 1878, built between 1880 and 1885 and dedicated on May 10, 1885.

The cemetery has three sections; the first is next to the church, the second is East of the church at the end of the driveway, and the final section, which contains newer graves, is located North East of the church up a separate driveway. We could not find anyone to contact to see about surveying the graves, and since we had seen other photos and blogs of people who had gone and taken photos, we figured it would be fine to go do our own analysis. A few hours into our project, an older gentleman showed up and stood watch over us as we continued our analysis. He didn't say anything to any of us, so we figured he must have been there to make sure we were not doing anything to damage the monuments. I later mentioned this to my grandfather, who lives on Salt Spring, and he was not surprised that we had a silent supervisor. According to him, the cemetery had been vandalised a few times before. It is still beyond me that people could have such little respect for the dead.

View St. Paul's Catholic Church Cemetery, Salt Spring Island in a larger map

The cemetery at St. Paul's has a relatively small number of marked graves. Near the front of the church, there is a memorial plaque for some 67 graves in the cemetery that are no longer marked.
After taking a look around at all the different sections of cemetery and the types of monuments there, we decided to focus on thirteen graves that had shell necklaces placed on them. From the research we had done prior to going to Salt Spring, we knew that the graves with shells belonged to a group of settlers from Hawaii known as the Kanakas. While the majority of the Kanaka graves had shells placed on them, not all of them did. For the purpose of our analysis, we chose to omit those graves without shells.

The sample of graves we chose to look at included babies to old adults. The monuments included obelisks, upright headstones, flat headstones, plaques and cement sarcophagi. The dates range from 1892 to 2009, the majority in the early 1900's. Two of the graves had no dates listed.

After the examination of the monuments, we wondered about the change in monument type over time. Our main question we wanted to answer was if the plain cement sarcophagi corresponded with a time of distress, such as World War II. When compared to the sarcophagi, we had noticed that the other monuments were more elaborate and decorated. After examining our data, we noticed that all of the visible sarcophagi, with the exception of one - Alfred Douglas - dated between 1943 and 1945 at the earliest dates. One of these sarcophagi contained two names - Doris and Jerome Pappenberger - and dated to 1945 and 1956 respectively. The Alfred Douglas sarcophagus dated to 1907. This data seemed to confirm our hypothesis that these less elaborate graves corresponded with the war. Staying with this theme, it seems that the three obelisks we analysed were erected in the early 1900's; the Pallow monument's earliest date was 1907, Noukin dating to 1909, and the Peterson obelisk with the dates of 1903 and 1908. It seems that earlier monuments were more elaborate than the ones dating closer to the mid 1900's. Based on this assumption, one can assume that the two monuments of unknown date - Edie Tahuney and the Gibson monument - may have dated to an earlier period due to their style.

L: Noukin Obelisk 1909; C: Mary H. Headstone 1892; R: Matilda Roland Sarcophagus 1943

I would like to find out more about why these particular Kanaka graves contain photos and shell necklaces today. Is it because they were some of the first settlers to Salt Spring? Are there still relatives living on the Island and paying their respects? Were these individuals of higher status than some of the other Kanaka settlers? Is there no particular reason at all? I feel these questions could be answered with more research, especially in the archives, but also by checking into local museums or perhaps interviewing some of the current locals on the island.

I also happened across a book written by Tom Koppel, a Salt Spring Island resident, about the Kanakas. It is called Kanaka : the untold story of Hawaiian pioneers in British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest. This book apparently contains photos of the settlers as well as chronicles the lives of some of the families who came to live on Salt Spring. It is available in UVic's special collections in the library. If I look more into their history, this book would definitely provide some good information.

I would very much like to continue research about this cemetery and about the history of the people buried there. St. Paul's is a beautiful church with a beautiful cemetery. It is filled with many different monuments dedicated to those young and old. Perhaps I can return some time soon, and examine the other graves in more detail.

References

Salt Spring Archives, n.d. a. Salt Spring's Hawaiian Community. [online] Available at: http://saltspringarchives.com/multicultural/kanaka.htm [Accessed 19 February 2012].

Salt Spring Archives, n.d. b. St. Paul's, Salt Spring Island's First Church. [online] Available at: http://saltspringarchives.com/cemetary/stpaul/index.htm [Accessed 18 February 2012].