It was only after arriving at Gaetz Memorial Church for Auntie Kathy's services on June 1 that we discovered that she was not being buried at the same graveyard as my grandparents. We always thought of Red Deer as a pretty small place, but with 88,000 current residents, they have two graveyards. This left us without much time to visit both graveyards before making the 75 minute drive back to Calgary to catch our plane.
When the procession after the services appeared to have no police escort, and we realized the entire group was doing a drive-by of the family house (A Chinese luck ritual... there's a million of 'em), Mom wisely suggested we bail on that caravan and go find Dad's parents' site first. Unfortunately, the directions I gleaned and cross-referenced from people before the service were terrible. We took a long time to just to finally find the Red Deer Cemetery and some of that time were sitting just outside it.
Then we didn't find anything where we were told, so we started spreading out and looking... Winnie, Mom, Debbie, and me. I was just thinking that maybe we should give up so we can still go to Auntie Kathy's site and then catch our plane in Calgary. Then Winnie waved me down, about 10 rows from where we started looking and shouted, "I found them!" Amazed, I asked her how she did it. She said, "I prayed to our ancestors to tell me, and they (specifically grandma) did!" You know, when stuff like that happens, a skeptic calls it imaginary. I don't think it's imaginary.
(Years later, I went to visit Winnie's grave in Colma (Woodlawn Memorial) for the first time since her funeral. I couldn't find it either, so I asked Winnie for help. I panned the yard left to right waiting for her to tell me when to stop. I did once, and it seemed like the wrong spot to me. I tried it again and stopped at the same spot. I figured my signal was bad and I went to the office to get the official location. Turns out it was right. Sorry I didn't trust you, Winnie!)
Best tip: The cemetery is only listed as being on "55 Street," but if you put 3980 55 St, Red Deer, Alberta into a Google Maps search, it comes up right at the cemetery entrance. There's plenty of street parking. If Google changes over time and this search doesn't work so well, just find the "Michener Centre" and go West a block or so. Or try "55 St. and McLellan Drive." At this point in time, the satellite photo loaded into Google is ancient... the cemetery is hardly developed at all. Park near the Google "A" on the map and follow the red line to the red dot.
The following photo sequence shows the views you'll see as you walk towards the spot. Once you get to the giant shed to the left of section V, you count in 13 rows to the right and then go halfway up the row. Right now there's a birdhouse at the other end of row 13.
Finally, here's a shot of me completing the mission to spread Dad's ashes on his parents' grave.
Last stop, Alto Reste with Uncle Harold and Auntie Kathy.Glenn
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