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Uncovering the past - Kamloops, BC

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10U E 689287 N 5616355

Pleasant Street Cemetery is divided into two sections bisected by 9th Avenue. Pleasant Street Cemetery celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2000. This was the second cemetery in Kamloops, the original being Pioneer Cemetery.

During the 1890s, Kamloops was experiencing rapid growth in population and the need for a large graveyard was recognized, so in 1898 the city purchased land for what became the Pleasant Street Cemetery. The date of the first interment in this cemetery was 28 May 1900.

Pleasant Street Cemetery superseded the small Pioneer Cemetery at Eighth Avenue and Lorne Street, which was located just east of the mouth of Peterson Creek.

By 1951 it was evident the city would soon require more burial space and a 15-acre site was purchased in the Sahali area for Hillside Cemetery. Pleasant Street Cemetery continues to be used for burials in pre-existing family plots.
From the Kamloops Family History Society

In 2010 the Kamloops Family History Society began the daunting task of documenting all 6,700 or so of the grave sites within the Pleasant Street Cemetery, many over a century old and suffering from the ravages of time. Along for the adventure was the Kamloops Daily News, which published an article on the happenings on September 15, 2010. The article is reproduced in part below.

Kamloops Family History Society undertakes huge project to document gravesites

CATHERINE LITT / Kamloops Daily News September 15, 2010

The years had not been good to Joseph Burton.

For seven long decades, his name was slowly and steadily sinking into the ground, deeper and deeper, choked by grass and dirt and the relentless march of time.

"It looks like there might be an initial there," said Tivola Howe, as she stood over the gravesite Monday night, clipboard in hand.

Below Howe, knees on the ground and fingertips black with dirt, Karen Collins carefully cut away slivers of grass and soil with a kitchen knife.

"Yes . . . an 'S' . . . or something," said Collins, pausing to examine the exposed letters.

It was the first hint of daylight Joseph S. Burton's name had seen in decades - and for all its utilitarian function, the act of exposing a long forgotten grave marker so it could be photographed and documented seemed oddly poignant; in its own way, a quiet act of respect for the man neither woman knew.

But there have been many such moments for Collins, Howe and their fellow Kamloops Family History Society members who have spent every Monday night for the past two months documenting headstones at Pleasant Street Cemetery.

"We'd like to finish this before the snow flies," said Barb Pillar.

"We're just trying to get as much done as we can before it's too dark and snowy."

The society's members are photographing and cross-referencing every headstone at Pleasant Street for the CanadaGenWeb.org Cemetery Project, a national database that's collecting photographs and genealogical details for the 16,000 known cemeteries across the country.

So far, the Kamloops group has documented 1,000 of the hundreds of gravesites at Pleasant Street.

And it's been no easy task. The ravages of time, weather and vandalism have rendered dozens of the stones and markers unrecognizable - while others have sunk so far into the ground they've disappeared all together.

Many, too, belong to former patients of the old Tranquille tuberculosis sanatorium, who were never given grave markers to begin with. Their remains rest under a patch of grass in a nondescript corner of the cemetery.

"We only know they're here," said society member Robin Poeschek, "because their names were listed by the City."
Read more at the Kamloops Daily News