Gravedigger recalls unmarked graves

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This article was published 04/11/2009 (5810 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

BELMONT, MB — Rodney Capon shuffles through the dense underbrush in Belmont’s Hillside Cemetery, careful not to trip in the shallow indentations hidden beneath the tall grass.

"I’ll show ya the exact locations of the ones we buried," he said. "This is all graves that we’re walking on."

There’s close to 200 aboriginals buried here, Capon said, lumped and dumped in unmarked graves at the back of the otherwise well-kept cemetery. They died of tuberculosis in the old Ninette sanatorium, he said.

Capon would know — he dug some of the graves himself with a shovel when he was only 14 years old.

He clearly remembers loading the bodies into "cheap caskets" at his father’s Belmont funeral parlour in the mid-1960s. The government wouldn’t pay to fly their bodies back up North, his father told him. Capon lowered them into the ground, but there were no prayers, no service, no markers, nothing.

The disgust he felt then is still written on his face as he surveys the broken bits of concrete and dead trees strewn atop several graves. The municipality has records that show 197 people lie beneath the grassy indentations.

"I have seen so many funerals, that this was just so far from the norm. It wasn’t even close to what a normal funeral is like. It was just shocking to me, because always with funerals you set out the nice grass, you have the lowering device, everything is beautiful," he said.

"This… this was disgusting."

Capon asked the municipality to release the names of the 197 people buried in Belmont, to make it easier for people to locate burial records of their loved ones who died of TB in the sanatorium.

The RM of Strathcona refused, citing privacy laws. The reeve did not return repeated calls from the Free Press.

"I had one lady phone me, she said she was three years old and her mother left and she came to the sanatorium. She never heard from her, never seen her again, and she doesn’t know where she’s buried or whatever happened to her," Capon said.

What really bothers Capon is there is no memorial to honour the people who weren’t given a proper burial. He wants to see the government erect a cairn.

Last year, the Manitoba Lung Association — formerly the Sanatorium Board of Manitoba — and the RM of Strathcona met to discuss the issue upon the request of the provincial government.

Margaret Bernhardt-Lowdon, executive director of the Lung Association, said the organization agreed to partially fund a memorial at the gravesite with the municipality.

One year later, nothing has been done.