Bert Belcher at Woodlawn Cemetery

During my visit to Woodlawn Cemetery in also visited the grave of Bert Belcher. 
I also visited him back and took photos in 2008. 

Bertrum Melvin Theodore Belcher was born August 13, 1897 in the town of Park River, North Dakota. He was the son of Daniel Belcher and Elizabeth Jane 'Lizzie' McCoy. I am not sure what they were doing in Park River. But it was a railway junction a hundred miles south of Manitou, Manitoba where his mother's family lived. So it is easy to imagine his mason/contractor American father travelling there for work.
After Daniel died in 1901, Elizabeth and her children moved to Perdue, Saskatchewan and she married Wesley Kee. 

The first photo shows Bert and his older brother Fred about 1913.
The second shows the young widow Elizabeth Belcher and her children Fred, Bert and Margaret. (Margaret was my grandmother. Bert would have been my great-uncle).

Jean Margaret Gibson Grave in Woodlawn Cemetery

On the first day of summer in June 2023 I made a short visit to the city of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. While I now live just three hours away, it has been more than a dozen years since my last visit. Among other things I wanted to visit Woodlawn Cemetery. It is a  well maintained park-like setting with many mature trees and lovely walkways. 

I have a strange relationship with cemeteries and graveyards. When I myself am gone my only memorial will be some random electronic musings and photos saved on archived websites. I want nothing more. I have visited too many neglected prairie cemeteries. Without care and attention even 50-year old graves are dug up by prairie gophers and badgers. Softer granite and marble soon becomes unreadable. Metal markers seem to do even worse.

In my family this seems to be the prevailing sentiment. There is no marker for my mother nor father. Any grave markers for my family on the west coast are well hidden or distant.

If people are reluctant to visit me when I am alive then I could hardly expect them to gather around my memorial when I am dead.
But when people have gone to the effort of getting a memorial then I think that I — along with other family members — should make an occasional visit. I enjoy visiting lonely cemeteries and taking photos. It is comforting to think that one or two people might think of me in the decades after I am gone.