Day 14, our final day in Canada - or - Women with a mission!

We spent some time last night doing some homework to find the Lillies Baptist Cemetery in the Rear of Yonge and Landsdown township.  It took a bit, but Kirsten nailed the directions down in her map.

We began the day knowing that we needed to find the Lillies Baptist Cemetery for 2 greats uncle William Church and his wife and several children.  That was about 30 miles away to the west.  I also needed to get to Blue Church Cemetery about 11 miles East of Brockville and St. James Anglican Cemetery in Maitland and finally Great Uncle Charles and his wife right here in Brockville.

So, we ate cold pizza for breakfast, drank some bad coffee and headed west to Lillies Baptist Cemetery.  Weak coffee is such a disappointment.  The route we took was exactly like yesterdays, but where we went right yesterday, today we went left and found it!

Sometimes I can zone right in on who I am looking for and that was the way of it at Lillies; walked right to them without any hunting.

It was starting to sprinkle, so on top of a garden bench for sitting, a bag full of brushes, rubber spatulas, powder, trowel, clippers, my notebook and a pen for writing the info and the Double Spotlight, we both had to carry umbrellas.

On of the stones was sunk down into the ground, so while I was writing up some of the other stones, Kirsten dug the dirt and grass away from the stone so I could get a copy of it with the dates.

As we were photographing the stones, the caretaker came over to see what we were doing and to stare at the hole Kirsten had dug.  We told him we would fill it back in when I finished photographing my family members.  I think he was a little stunned that we dug because his eyes kept sliding back to the hole.  Frankly I don’t like to see my ancestors stones sliding under the grass, but  we did fill it in.

He kept chatting at us and asking questions, told us about some other Church family members who were buried in the cemetery and finally Kirsten took off to photograph them while I finished taking photos of the stones I had come to see.

We left Lillies Baptist Cemetery and headed south to the 401.  We needed to get up to Maitland, Ont for two cemeteries and they were about 65 km away.  

Now the lovely thing about the 401 is that there are rest rooms (OnRoute they are called) about every 28-44 km down near Windsor and out past Toronto, but up here as we get closer to Quebec they are stretching out and so the Mallorytown OnRoute is the last  one for 77 km.  We stopped at the OnRoute for a couple minutes, then continued on up the 401.  It is a subtle message from the Canadian goverment; rest all you want along the lake, but once you enter the seaway, you’ve gotta hold it.  Why?

We got off at Maitland and it happens to be Church Street.  Now amazingly enough, this was the street we needed to find Jerusha Skinner, her father and her sister-in-law.  Jerusha Skinner is the 2nd wife to Dr. Basil Rorison Church. She died in 1833.  He and his first and third wives are buried up in Merrickville and we found their grave stones a couple years ago.

We also found Jerusha Skinner Church’s sister-in-law next to her.  I really liked the artwork of a chopped tree on top, hadn’t ever seen it before.

We left for the Blue Church Cemetery to look for Knapp and Guernsey family members.

Here is the view from the Blue Church Cemetery across the St. Lawrence to New York.

One of the things we’ve noticed is the marble stones up here are melting away fast and the granite stones are getting covered quickly with thick orange lichen.

After we found everyone we wanted, we called the Oakland Cemetery in Brockville to see if they could tell me where Great Uncle Charlie and Aunt Mary were buried.  Dale offered to show us as soon as we got to the cemetery.  So we drove down Route 2 through Brockville and past it to Oakland.  Thank goodness we called.   There are over 20,000 people in the cemetery with room for another 20 or 30,000 plots especially with cremations now.  The cemetery is over 100 acres in size.

Dale jumped into his bright red Dodge Hemi truck with one of those rear air foil things, to keep the truck on the ground, that Hemi is so powerful.  He tore off through the cemetery and it was all we could do to keep up in our little Subaru.  He led us right to Uncle Charlie, and told us a little about managing a cemetery.  

Uncle Charles is James Turner Church’s youngest half brother.  He married Mary Helena Coad.

We stopped back at the office to get the section and plot number, then headed back into Brockville to find the Brockville Museum.  

The Leeds and Grenville branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society is in the basement of the museum.  They have lots of genealogical research books as well as some books to sell. There were some cemetery books I’ve been wanting.  They also had a copy of the Kitley 1795 - 1975 book that I had wanted to peruse.  I’ll get a copy of it through interlibrary loan, then scan the pages I want with my flip scanner and source the book.

We left the museum and headed back to Boston Pizza for an early supper.  Ordered a caesar salad and penne with alfredo sauce and baked cheese.  Kirsten got nachos with guacamole on the side.

We were back in the room by 5:30 and have accomplished everything on the list for today.  Tomorrow we head back to the USA.  It has been a lovely trip and I have lots of homework to add to my family history and more stones into Find A grave.  Only in Canada; we see curling, twice, on the TV.  

This blog has been fun to write, again thanks Sandra Leigh for inspiring me.