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News - February 2022

Dates to Remember

NOTE: change of time for service - now 12 noon! (revised May 4th, 2022).

May 28th, 2022: volunteer to help us paint, install fence boards and prepare for June 4th. (May 29th rain date).
Send an email to "info [at] lochabercemetery [dot] org" if you want to help!
June 4th, 2022: Memorial Service and Headstone Appreciation Day

10:30am : help install some headstone markers.
12noon : Memorial Service.
1pm : social, snacks and refreshments.

Cemetery Update

It's time for an update on what we have been able to accomplish in 2021 at the cemetery. We also want to tell you about our plans for 2022 - especially our Memorial Service on June 4th - but first, the all-important grass and hedge:

Grass Cutting and Hedge Maintenance

Sharlene Newton has been our grass cutter for many years but has decided she can no longer help us. Many thanks Charlene for your work at the cemetery over what must be close to 10 years with many of those years along side your Dad - Bill Newton!

This summer Vincent Boucher trimmed our hedge and did a great job. He has agreed to cut our grass this season and help us with other cemetery maintenance work. Vincent comes with many skills that we hope to deploy on some of our headstone maintenance activities! Many thanks Vincent!

Headstone Maintenance Project

Great news - we collected just over $6000 for our Headstone Maintenance and Preservation Projects! Many thanks to all those that made donations! We have spent/contracted just over $3000 to date in headstone repair and an initial purchase of headstone markers. We intend to allocate the remaining funds to outstanding headstone repair and our Inscription Preservation project.

This summer we engaged Yolkowski Monuments to work on our project list. Unfortunately the headstone and monuments business has been affected by the pandemic and the demands for new headstones has pushed maintenance projects like ours to a lower priority. That said, Yolkowski managed to spend a day at our cemetery and Donnie and Jimmy worked hard and accomplished quite a bit.

Donnie and Jimmy - on a beautiful fall day.

Here is an updated list of headstones and work status:

Note: When you see 'Plan B' it means we have lots of imagination and we will continue to develop alternate plans to finish this project and meet our commitment to our supporters.

(Click on Ref # to open page on more info about the headstone.)

Ref#	Description / History:	Work:	Status:
D1	Duncan McEachern - Marion McDonald 1801-1866, 1805-1866: Settled in Lochaber Bay approx. 1835 with MacLachlans and McCallums	Clean.	COMPLETED.
D13	Mary McCallum 1832-1868: Daughter of John McCallum and Margaret McDonald.	Was repaired – now in 2 pieces. To be repaired with glue and pins.	No work done. Time to go to Plan B.
K5	John C MacCallum 1875-1940: grandson of John and Margaret (McDonald) McCallum and also Robert and Mary (McDonald) McLachlan.	Tilting east: new foundation.	Moved off old foundation. Ready for new foundation to be poured. Time to go to Plan B.
I9	John Angus – Christena Kennedy 1843-1921: Father of Jean MacLachlan (Angus). Jean married Rory MacLachlan (the bull fighter).	Big stone and tilting south: Pour a new foundation provided they can move headstone with pry-bars and by “walking” it off location.	Yolkowski could not budge it. Time to go to Plan B.
M22	Hugh McNeil – Christina McMillan 1845-1928, 1853-1928	Tilting south: shim and crushed stone to straighten.	COMPLETED.
D10	Robert McLachlan – Mary McDonald 1800-1894, 1798-1879: Settled in Lochaber Bay approx. 1835 with McEacherns and McCallums	Tilting north-east: shim and crushed stone to straighten. (Too fragile to lift and do a new foundation).	Too fragile even to lift with pry-bars. We will work on I9 first and then consider applying same technique to this headsone.
F4	John McCallum – Elizabeth King 1801-1882, 1813-1900: Elizabeth is John's 2nd wife. John and Margaret (McDonald - 1st wife) settled in Lochaber Bay approx. 1835 with McEacherns and McLachlans. There is a story (probably) behind where Margaret is buried and why John has 2 headstones in cemetery (F6).	Tilting east: shim and crushed stone to straighten.	COMPLETED. (Sorry, no image).
B13	Finlay McMillan 1816-1868	Tilting and loose on base: shim and crushed stone to straighten. Caulk to seal stone on base.	COMPLETED - including caulking and a cleaning.
C1	Hugh McEachern	Added to 'clean' list.	Cleaned.
E1	Annie McEachern	Added to 'clean' list.	Cleaned.

The Sands of Time

If you remember from the last news letter, we proposed a solution to keep the inscriptions readable despite acid rain and other pollutants eating away at these inscriptions on sandstone and marble.

We are pleased to announce that we received great support for this idea and we have gone ahead and purchased an initial lot of 32 headstone markers covering headstones in rows A to G up to and including headstone G10.

This sets us up for our "Headstone Appreciation Day - Memorial Service" and we have picked a date : June 4th, 2022! We invite you to attend the Memorial Service at 12 noon but also come earlier at 10:30am and bring your shovel and help us install some of our markers! If you have a particular headstone that you are fond of and want to be the one that digs the 8in hole to install the marker, please let us know!

Here is the "LBC Headstone Reference Booklet" that we will leave at the cemetery in the Guest Kiosk. You can download it as a pdf now and browse through the headstones by Reference # or by Lastname - however remember, we are only installing markers up to headstone G10 this year!

LBC-Headstone-Reference-Booklet ⇗ 250K pdf

Remember how this works:

Each headstone marker has a 2-3 character Reference Number on it
you 'read' the inscription and learn about the family behind the marker by opening up your smartphone to our website and typing in the Reference Number.
No Smartphone? No Problem! Use the booklet and look people up by Reference # or by Last Name (but to keep the size of the booklet reasonable, you need to use the website to see the inscriptions.)

Find a plot or headstone:

Heritage Designation

Yes, the Municipality of Lochaber-Partie-Ouest has discovered us - which is fine - and they installed a pair of information plaques at the entrance to the cemetery after extensive consultation with us. We are very pleased with the result and I think you will be too!

Here are some photos of the plaque followed by a pdf document of the text before it went to print.

Click on any image to open a large image in a new tab.

Lochaber_Plaque_Anglais.pdf (2M pdf)

Donations

Donations to the Lochaber Bay Cemetery are always welcome. Our investment fund is small (from donations dating back decades!) which provides an income stream that almost pays the grass cutting - but not the hedge trimming nor other maintenance. Fortunately donations in the last 5 years have helped us keep up with the grass, hedge and other maintenance activities (like fence repair!) without eroding this fund.

Donations by cheque can be made to:

    Lochaber Bay Cemetery Company
    c/o William Lamb, Treasurer
    246 Wall Rd
    Navan, Ontario
    K4B 1H9

Donations by e-transfer can be made to:

donate@lochabercemetery.org

Enter your email address or mailing address in the message window so we can send you a receipt!

The Lochaber Bay Cemetery Committee:

Harold Blount - President
David McLachlan - Vice-President
Bill Lamb - Secretary/Treasurer
Marianne Lamb - Director
Jason MacCallum - Director

Auditor

Special thanks to Devon Purcell for agreeing to be our auditor!

Contact

Check our website from time to time: www.lochabercemetery.org
Like us on facebook: www.facebook.com/lochabercemetery ⇗
email: info [at] lochabercemetery [dot] org
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