Lemay Forest cemetery should be left undisturbed

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 27/02/2025 (234 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Recently, the Société historique de St-Boniface discovered that fully 3,383 children died out of the 7,365 admitted to the Asile Ritchot orphanage in St. Norbert.

The Asile, run by the Sisters of Misericordia between 1904 and 1948, served small children and babies. It was also a home for unwed mothers. Some of the children had lost their parents, some had parents who could not care for them, some were abandoned.

Although there were Indigenous children at the Asile, primarily Métis, there were children of all ethnicities. Virtually all were there because they were poor.

The horrifying number of deaths occurred for many reasons. Principally, while the sisters were expecting to take care of 30 babies at a time, the numbers of children quickly grew beyond their means.

Lack of staff, poor nutrition, overcrowded quarters, infectious diseases, and possibly because the orphanage was getting fresh water from the Red River, contributed to this high number of deaths.

The Asile had its own cemetery carved out of Lemay Forest. According to the sisters, once a year the children who had died would be buried together in an unmarked communal grave.

Archivists are still determining how many children were buried in the Asile cemetery, but between 1907 and 1912 alone at least 726 babies were buried there. Likely thousands of children who died at the Asile were buried in Lemay Forest. Further research is required.

Stillborn babies from the Misericordia hospital, the sisters, unwed mothers, people associated with the Asile, and female pensioners who previously lived at the Misericordia hospital, were also buried in the cemetery in Lemay Forest.

Two maps, two aerial photos, and steel posts placed at the corners of the cemetery have established the exact location.

So what is the problem with developing Lemay Forest? No one knows for sure how many and where exactly the children and adults were buried. Remote sensing by the Historic Resources Branch indicates two burial pits that may fall outside of the cemetery proper.

In addition, past practice has shown that people tended to bring their loved ones to be buried close to cemeteries. The Historic Resources Branch has stated that a 50-metre buffer zone around the cemetery must be left untouched and they have asked for a plan for what the developer intends to do with other bones found in the rest of the forest.

In 1974 the sisters abruptly decided to move the identified human remains to the St. Boniface Cemetery on Archibald Street. Desjardins Funeral Home conducted the removal but listed only 15 bodies as having been moved.

The sisters make no mention of moving the children or of any deconsecration ceremony.

The funeral home would have needed sieves and water to pluck the thousands of tiny bones and teeth from the earth. There would not have been any osteo-archaeologist to help Desjardins identify juvenile human remains in 1974.

The details of these deaths is particularly sad. For instance, neighbours of the Asile stated that during the summer when the windows of the Asile were open, they could hear the children crying in the night. There were not enough staff and resources to care for and comfort them.

How have we become so numb that the deaths of nearly 3,400 children is not considered a tragedy of monumental proportions?

The developer has stated that they will find “hot spots” and narrow down any buffer zone. They insist on building a 2,500-unit facility on the remaining land around the cemetery, even though they will need to bring in lots of dirt because Lemay Forest regularly floods from overland water. This will push all the water into the cemetery.

The developer has vowed to chop down all the trees in Lemay Forest. Bringing heavy machinery in will churn up the remains.

We should not disturb this cemetery and the surrounding area. We need to acknowledge the harm to the children, consult with those who lived or had relatives in the Asile, and do something appropriate to acknowledge this terrible history.

Above all the cemetery should not be “private property with public access” as the developer has stated and the children should never be forgotten again.

Dr. Shelley Sweeney is archivist emerita, University of Manitoba and archives and special collections.