The graves in St. Luke’s churchyard have many stories to tell. Here is another story linked to the Stewart family grave.
In November 2017, we received an e-mail to St. Luke’s Office addressed to “The Archivist” asking if we could take a picture of the marker for George and Harriet Stewart. Gord Young of Lakefield Heritage Research in Peterborough, Ontario, had found George and Harriet’s name in the database St. Luke’s had posted online at our website. The researchers at Lakefield Heritage Research knew that George and Harriet were not buried in the Lakefield-Peterborough area but it took a bit of sleuthing to find them. This first request began a long e-mail conversation with Gord Young about the Stewart family and their connections to Peterborough and to St. Luke’s.
When we sent pictures of the Stewart family grave to Gord, he commented that he noticed the tree on the Stewart family plot and wondered if that might be the one brought from Banff when Harriet passed. Harriet and her husband had lived in Banff and then in Calgary before retiring to Victoria. Her husband, George Alexander Stewart, had been the first Superintendent of Banff National Park. A family legend was that Harriet was given a tree from Banff when she died. Gord said that the tree was a persistent oral story in Peterborough which could be a myth. He asked us to find out the species of the tree and if it could be found in and around Banff. The story from Harriet’s family was that it is thought that one of the Simpson kids had a tree shipped to Victoria from Banff after their grandmother's passing.
When a biologist, Dr. Patrick von Aderkas from UVic, was able to look at the tree he commented that he thought it was a Ligustrum japonica, Japanese privet. Interestingly in 2018 the tree bloomed at Eastertime and we used some of the blossoms from the tree for our Easter decorating in the church around the font and in other places. It was very serendipitous that Mrs. Stewart's tree could be a part of the Easter decorations at St. Luke's! Patrick had deduced by the white blossoms in the spring that the tree is an ornamental japonica, which is quite popular here but not native to the Victoria area or to Banff National Park.
Gord later learned that women such as Harriet Stewart who had served many years with IODE (Imperial Order Daughters of the Empire), a women's charitable organization based in Canada, had trees planted in their honour. Apparently sometimes in Ontario the Pioneer French Lilac bush was planted on graves of important women in the IODE, according to a source familiar with Mt. Pleasant Cemetery in Toronto.
Since Harriet's family has in its historical archives that the tree came from Banff, perhaps the Banff-Canmore IODE and maybe the Calgary IODE made donations towards the purchase of this special tree in memory of Harriet.
No matter what its source, the japonica on Mrs. Stewart’s grave in St. Luke’s cemetery symbolizes the renewal of Mrs. Stewart's memory when it blooms around Easter each year.
[Compiled by Barb Prescott, on behalf of St. Luke's Cemetery Committee.]