Ocean View Chinese Cemetery
Ocean View Cemetery is a very popular cemetery with the Chinese in Greater Vancouver. On the southwest corner of the cemetery, which Ocean View has assigned the name Fern, is a fair number of Chinese who died in the 1950s and from the looks of things most died without family. Vast majority of these graves had shown no visitors during the traditional Spring and Autumn visitations nor the traditional western holidays. Another indication of them died family-less is the fact that the year of birth is missing on a rather large number of these tombstones.
Thee are more than 350 photos in this collection. I have broken it up into multiple slideshows and presented over 3 pages because one slideshow takes too long to load.
Wonderful pictures, thanks for sharing.
Hazel, Liverpool,UK
Having studied some of older tombstones photos I begin to appreciate the full details of the date of birth and death in old Chinese calendar system in addition to the ancestral information included on the inscription. There is no second guess if the year was pre-Cultural Revolution or a Gregorian adoption.
The remaining challenge is interpreting the month and day!
One clue to determine if the usage of Chinese calendar is presence: In mainland China following the Imperial tradition of using the sovereign’s era name and year of reign Chinese born after 1911 often used the prefix “min guo” 民國 until the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949.
Of course, that is if you can read Chinese. If not, consult someone who can.