One Stone for Every Infant...
Cemetery commemorates unmarked infant graves
A ceremony at Mountain View Cemetery Saturday September 30, 2006 marked the dedication of a special area that commemorates the more than 10,000 infants buried in the cemetery between 1914 and 1971.
Some family members of children buried here gathered for the event. The area, one of three sections of the cemetery where infants are buried, is the last resting place of more than 6,600 children. It has been newly landscaped and a memorial streambed was installed.
Most of the infants buried here were either stillborn or died shortly after birth. They were buried in communal graves, a common practice during these decades. Family members could not place a marker on the grave area because there were too many infants in one grave for the cemetery to accommodate a marker for each child.
In 2005, the cemetery engaged a landscape architecture firm to develop an appropriate and meaningful way to identify, mark and commemorate these areas as well as provide an opportunity for those who wished to individually memorialize the infants.
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The resulting dry streambed of shrubs and flowers provides a rich and seasonal context for carefully chosen river stones that symbolize the infants buried there - one stone for every infant. Larger stones are available for purchase by families wishing to have the name of their infant engraved as part of this landscape.
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Second Infant Area Finished
This small are located close to Celebration Hall is the resting place for almost 3000 infants. It was designed to accommodate a variety of commemoration. Along with a stylized dry stream bed the area is planted with numerous bulbs.
Download the commemorative stone application form [pdf]
Watch a short video of the unveiling of the area [6mb wmv]
For more information please
contact
the
cemetery office
at
604.325.2646
or mountainview.cemetery@vancouver.ca
