Amateur historian researches stories of the dead
A puzzle that dates back to the 1960s is almost resolved.
It concerns the details of about 20 of the 53 who are buried at a small Central Alberta cemetery. Some of them have been there for more than 100 years.
Information on them was either incomplete or missing entirely at one time.
Now, thanks to 15 years of sleuthing by Tim Kirby, the details of all but three of them have been retrieved.
The story started to emerge 15 years ago when Kirby arrived at Harmattan, about a 20-minute drive southwest of Olds, to serve as pastor at the Church of the Nazarene.
He found the adjacent cemetery neglected and overgrown.
“It’s the pastor’s duty to look after the cemetery,” he says with a smile, standing amid the scattered headstones and small crosses.
Kirby went to work taming the wilderness that had overtaken the small cemetery to such an extent that many people driving by had no idea it was there.
At the same time he was clearing away the brush, mowing grass, planting trees, adding fencing and sprucing up the one-acre cemetery, Kirby discovered it was harbouring a bit of a mystery.
One of the responsibilities of anyone running a cemetery is to maintain proper records.
But somewhat like the cemetery itself when Kirby arrived, the records were in a less than well-maintained state.
Many dates of death were missing.
It turned out that filling in the blanks wasn’t as simple as wandering through the gravestones in the cemetery and culling information.
“In the mid-1960s it was alleged that a group of young people systematically removed headstones from several local cemeteries, for whatever reason,” says Kirby.
But though he’s hunted through the archives of area newspapers, not all of which are complete, he has been unable to confirm the yarn.
It is said that 19 headstones were removed from the Harmattan Cemetery.
About 12 were replaced with small white markers by the church in 1991. They carry as much information as appears to have been available — sometimes little more than a name.
One rumour about the missing markers said they were dumped in a treed area immediately to the west of the cemetery.
Kirby hunted around but all he found was discarded bits of concrete that definitely were not headstones.
“They may be in there, but I haven’t found them,” he says.
Besides the absent headstones, the cemetery also had some plain, aging wooden crosses with absolutely no information on them.
Luckily, though, there was a map of the cemetery showing names and locations of its occupants. It had most recently been updated in 1954.
Over the years, thanks to trips to the provincial archives in Edmonton, hours spent poring over old newspaper records and talking to area residents, Kirby has found the information he needed and sometimes more.
One of his early discoveries was that Harmattan wasn’t always Harmattan.
It was once called Harrison, Kirby discovered after his initial and fairly fruitless visit to the provincial archives.
The original Harmattan was to the east.
Then in 1924 its post office was moved to Harrison, and Harrison became Harmattan.
Armed with that information, Kirby was off and running.
Among the gaps he has filled is the name of an infant entered in the records as simply “Italian baby.”
The little one, buried in 1919, now has a last name, Putrantonio.
“The story is (the parents) were farm labourers passing through, and he died,” says Kirby.
He has found a first name for another youngster, described only as “Indian baby girl,” in the records.
“Oh, Mary is named after my mother,” an area resident told him.
The child was a Stoney Indian and died at the age of three in 1937.
Stoney people would typically work on area farms in those days, says Kirby, returning to their homes in Morley during the winter.
Both the children’s graves have only plain, weathered wooden crosses to mark them.
Kirby would like to find a way to raise funds to provide proper headstones for them, if he can.
And of course he is also hoping someone will come forward with the dates of death he still needs for three of those for whom the Harmattan Cemetery is their final resting place.
They are: Kathryn Reid, or perhaps Cathryn Reid, a school teacher who taught at the Harrison school in 1903; a Dr. Hielson, who appears to have been a female vet, and a good one at that who also treated human patients, according to the folklore; and Martha Torgerson, who apparently helped Hielson in treating people. Torgerson and her husband are believed to have been in their 60s or 70s in 1915.
Though Kirby is no longer the pastor to the church — it’s not there any more — he is dedicated to finishing his task and is handily located for that.
The Church of the Nazarene building at Harmattan was sold to Seventh-day Adventists — who originally built it in 1906 and also created the cemetery — and relocated.
Kirby bought the land the church stood on and thus lives next door to the cemetery and maintains his concern for it.
“We need to respect people in life and we need to respect them in death as well and to have a place of honour for them,” he says.
Anyone who may have information that would help Kirby finish his task of completing the cemetery’s registry should call him at 403-556-0112.
Contact Penny Caster at pcaster@reddeeradvocate.com
Cemetery still active, though most plots sold
In the course of researching information on those buried at the Harmattan Cemetery, southwest of Olds, Tim Kirby has learned a lot.
• A Seventh-day Adventist church was built at Harmattan, then called Harrison, in 1906.
• Land for the church and its adjacent cemetery was donated by Danish-born local resident, Niels Petersen. He was buried at the cemetery in 1913.
• In 1938, the church and cemetery were sold to the Church of the Nazarene.
• In 1998, the Church of the Nazarene sold the church back to the Seventh-day Adventists, who relocated it.
• There were some tragic deaths, over the years. One such was Pearl Astleford, (1880-1014) who is buried at the cemetery.
She had the misfortune to be crossing the Little Red Deer River on a horse-drawn wagon. The wagon hit a bump, the horses spooked, Astleford was pitched off and the wagon ran over her head.
The cemetery is still active, though most of the plots have been sold.
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