The World Wide Cemetery

Name at birth:	Rodney Leonard Jamieson
Date of birth:	01 05 1960
Place of birth:	Alberta Canada
Date of death:	18 12 1994
Place of death:	Toronto, Canada
Resting place:	Toronto, Canada
Submitted by:	Mark Sullivan

 

 

In 1980 Rodney left his home in Edmonton, Canada, to study at Gallaudet Univesity in Washington, DC. He left Gallaudet, with two degrees, in 1989 and moved to Toronto where he became a sign language teacher with the Canadian Hearing Society. A staunch advocate of American Sign Language, he was one of the best in his field. He had the admiration of colleagues and students alike.

Rod, worked closely with the deaf and gay / Lesbian community in Toronto. He was a counsellor and coordinator with the Aids Committee of Toronto’s Deaf Outreach Project and he was president of the Toronto Rainbow Alliance for the Deaf, an organization devoted to deaf consciousness raising for gay men and Lesbians.

Though ill himself, he was a loyal friend who helped many that were sick with HIV while they were dying. Rod was never seen to complain during his own draining ordeal with HIV. He enjoyed until the end the company of his many good friends, his family, whom he was very close to, and his partner Marcus Sullivan. Goodbye Rod. – MK

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Hear Me Through My Vision
Come, calm your restless souls that’ve been tortured too long. The end is only the beginning and you need not suffer for me anymore. My mind is alert and my soul has awakened with understanding. The body is damaged beyond repair and needs to rest. I Loved and Lived my life fully and acknowledge the end that comes with this realization. Beyond here lies a safe haven for all the restless souls who have suffered in loves name.

My spirit like yours is great and will live on in those whom I loved and who loved me. I hope I have left my mark in the hearts of those who truly cared. The passage of time coupled with understanding will heal the emptiness and pain in all our hearts.

Grieve not too long for this will do no justice to your souls, but instead remember the one spirit we all eternally share. Remember we are all soldiers of love and have our share in the evolution of humanity on earth. Have the courage to live your story and have the patience to listen to others as I have. For we are all on the same journey.

Be safe and secure in knowing we all have been given the opportunity to partake in the process of the story of life and be appreciative if you are strong enough to carry the challenge. The path we are all on will cross again, and again and make no mistake, I will be there to celebrate with all who have taken part in the quest for the holy grail.

– RJ / Marcus

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Visitors & Flowers

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Name at birth:    Christopher James Calvin Jackson 
Date of birth:    May 9, 1968 
Place of birth:   Canada 
Date of death:    April 26, 1996 
Place of death:   Oshawa, Canada 
Place of burial:  Necropolis Cemetery, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Submitted by: Syd Creighton (creightons@smh.toronto.on.ca)

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In Memory of my Blood Brother, Chris, the Dark Prince. We shared so many things in such a short time, laughter (lots), tears (not too many), love (lots), and pain (yours was physical, mine was emotional). I was honoured to walk by your side for a time in your journey through this life. You left me better than you found me, and you taught me much. Rest well my brother, until we meet again — when the first drink’s on me — and the party resumes as before.
With all my love, and respect.
Mistress Syd

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Visitors & Flowers

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Name at birth:    Robert Thomas Huard 
Date of birth:    1947 
Place of birth:   Quebec, Canada 
Date of death:    October 6, 1996 
Place of death:   Hamilton, Ontario 
Place of burial:  McAffee Cemetery,  Fort Erie, Ontario, Canada

Submitted by: Dayle Storie

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To one great writer, poet, and friend who touched the hearts of many around him.

May he rest in the care of the Great One.

Goodbye Bob.

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Visitors & Flowers

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Name at birth:    Earle Wesley Herrick 
Date of birth:    19 Aug 1923 
Place of birth:   Smiths Falls, Ontario, Canada 
Date of death:    29 Jan 1999 
Place of death:   Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada 
Place of burial:  Fairview Cemetery, Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada 

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Earle Wesley Herrick, painter, missionary and veteran, was born in Smiths Falls, Ontario, Canada, the eldest son of Walter “Ed” Herrick, born in Leicester, England, and Jessie May Evoy, born in Whitebread, Ontario, Canada. Earle’s great-great grandfather, Matthew (Mc)Evoy, was a native of Ireland who settled in the Ottowa Valley in 1819 on land granted him by the Crown. Earle served in WWII, in the Navy, and he was wounded while in Europe. After returning home, he lived for a number of years in Toronto, where his parents lie at rest. The father of six children, Earle was always a proud Canadian who instilled that same love of country in his family. He awaits the resurrection in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada, his home in recent years. “I love you a bushel and a peck.”

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Visitors & Flowers

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Name at birth:	Alexander Joseph Henter
Date of birth:	14/08/1926
Place of birth:	Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Date of death:	June 28, 1999
Place of death:	Surrey, B.C.
Resting place:	Victory Memorial Park, Surrey, B.C.
Submitted by:	Mark Henter (Agapehouse@home.com)

 

 

There could never be enough room to write of all the things you did, Dad. I honor you for trying your best at all times, and fighting to the end.
More than that, I honor your commitment to Christ last year, and therefore know that you are in heaven. I waited 19 years for that commitment, glad you made it before it was too late.
You always brought a smile where possible, always had a quip, joke or jest – some didn’t understand, but perhaps that’s because they were just unhappy people.

Thanks Dad – I WILL see you again. Love, Mark

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Visitors & Flowers

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Name at birth:	Yvonne Boucher
Date of birth:	December 8, 1916
Place of birth:	Bathurst, Canada
Date of death:	June 1, 2002
Place of death:	Bathurst, Canada
Resting place:	Bathurst, New Brunswick, Canada
Submitted by:	Gerald Hannon (gerald.hannon@sympatico.ca)

 

If you did not know my mother, you might think she died a poor woman. Little money, no car, no house, no expensive clothes. But we who knew her know she died a rich woman. She knew that the richest people are those who give everything away. She gave us many things, but I want to talk of only three.

She gave us the gift of her laughter. One of my earliest memories if of her reading bedtime stories to my brother John and me, and starting to laugh, and making us laugh until we could not stop. I know that laughter was a strong bond between her and her best friend and companion Rita and Rita’s sister Jackie, and we would hear stories of nights and days of laughter on the banks of the Nigadoo River, and if that got helped along by a little gin and tonic, that was just fine. She had the nurses laughing whenever she was in the hospital. She had the ambulance attendants laughing all the way to Moncton once. You cannot think of my mother without hearing her laughter.

She gave us the gift of her sense of adventure. My mother would try anything. When she was 50, I took her and my brother David to Mexico — three days on the bus. Put her on a donkey for a six-hour walk in the mountains to a primitive village. She didn’t hesitate for a minute. She loved it. Young people felt at ease with her. They saw the same spirit in her that they felt in themselves.

She gave us the gift of understanding what love is — that you become richer in love the more you give it away. Love meant protecting us, nurturing us, laughing with us, crying with us. Love meant kissing the pain away from a scrape if we fell. It meant putting pennies away till she could put a twenty-dollar bill in an envelope and mail it. It would mean something a little different to all of us — to my brother John, to his wife Liz whom my mother loved as the daughter she never had, to my brother David, to his wife Donna and their children, Trevor and Corrine, to her friend Jackie, to her best friend and companion of more than 20 years, Rita. I pray that somewhere she knows that, that she made us understand love, and that it is coming back to her now with the same richness, the same intensity, the same laughter and today, the same tears, as she gave to all of us.

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Visitors & Flowers

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Name at birth:	Francis Norman Gotro (Norm)
Date of birth:	January 12, 1917
Place of birth:	Oba, Ontario, Canada
Date of death:	May 29, 1997
Place of death:	Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada
Resting place:	Ocean View Cemetery, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada
Submitted by:

 

 

Eulogy to the life of Norman Gotro (1917-1997)

A little over eighty years ago, an individual destined to be [our] father arrived on this earth. That life spanned the history of the 20th century: two world wars, a global depression, and saw the world turn from the age of horse and carriage, to the automobile, to the marvel of space exploration. Dad lived it all as vibrantly and dynamically as any man [we] have ever known. He was, for [us] at least, larger than the century and life itself. And though we infrequently spoke of such things, because they would embarrass us [all], [we] loved him deeply and respected him highly.

[Our] father was a man of deeply held principles. He was a man about whom it was, is, and will, be said, that he may have been wrong many times, but he was also many times astutely correct in his thinking. He was a man who, [we] believe, influenced this century with the millions of words he placed upon the editorial pages of this nation from the Maritimes to the West Coast. He was a man who fought in its world wars, who walked with Premiers and Prime Ministers, who wrote of the advent of a new world order that came to be, who disciplined his children to excel and compete against the last success and “not give a damn” for the ridicule, or praise, of others. “Aim for the moon,” he would say, “if you only get half way there, you’ll have gone one hell of a long way.” We have watched him take his risks, and accept his failures and successes. His life was the “Serenity Prayer”, full of courage, acceptance, and wisdom, (and a large quantity of Gotro stubbornness) which he passed on in liberal quantities to all of his children.

[Our] father loved his family. [Our] mother has been his wife for fifty years. Together, they brought nine children into the world, and though tragedy took one from them, they nursed the rest of us with discipline and affection, literature and music, history, and had the willingness to “let go and let God” take care of us when our independence mastered even them. The old house on Sixth Avenue would rock with our wars and our laughter, our extravagant Christmases and Dad’s fabulously huge summer “Smorgas-cooks”, and though she never said so, I know my mother knew Dad was teaching [his boys]to play poker and throw dice in the basement. It was the loudest, the most disorganized, the happiest, and the safest house in all the world. And in the middle of it all, “the Chief” held court, the loudest of us all.

Quick to anger and stubborn as Beelzebub, Dad’s forgiveness came as suddenly as the storm clouds that preceded it. The phrase, “Wait til your father gets home.” was a monumental threat for a [young child]. Today, [we all] wish [we] could hear those words again and see him striding round the corner of Balaclava and Sixth, his arms swinging and those short strong legs eating ground faster than men twice his size. [We] would have defied anyone to go on a walk with him as [we all did]. And [we]would dearly love to hear that late evening yell up the stairs after lights out, “Settle down up there, or by the gods of war, I’m coming up!” For years, [we] believed [our]father to be possessed by Jupiter and Mars and would descend upon [us] in the night with the full fury of the Apocalypse. But each Saturday morning, they would be gone, and in their place would by [our] father, lining up eight stacks of quarters, each one a coin higher than the other, according to age, or default of chores, on the dining room table. In Dad, anger was a cover for generosity and he never fooled us, even when he meant it, for a minute.

Today, we are told that Dad is dead. [We] do not accept this. Christ said that no man could come to his father except through him, that those who ate of his body and drank of his blood would find themselves in eternity. In human terms, [our] father’s flesh and blood is yet alive in the sea of deep blue eyes, independent spirits, and tenacity for life [we] see before [us] today. And though we are saddened that he had to leave us suddenly, [we] know that he is not gone, not really. His features, his little crooked grin, are etched in the faces of almost all of [us] who sit [together] today. [Let us end], therefore, by [closing our eyes] not to weep or grieve, but to burn [our] memories of his life with [us] deeply into [our] minds. [We will] carry that happiness joyously with [us] from this place. [Let us] tell him [we’re] still aiming for the moon and that [we’ll] see him when [we] get there. [We will] not write “-30-” after his name, and not mourn; he has not passed away, he has merely passed a torch for [us] to hold. It will always be there to help [us]see our way home.

Written by Paul Gotro (son)– June 4, 1997

Edited to include the sentiments of all of Norm’s family who loved him dearly.

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Visitors & Flowers

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Name at birth:	Charles Lionel Gilbert
Date of birth:	2 July, 1910
Place of birth:	Gleichen, Alberta
Date of death:	December 8, 1987
Place of death:	Richmondhill, Ontario
Resting place:	Richmondhill, Ontario, Canada
Submitted by:	Barb Ball   (bball@chat.carleton.ca)

 

Beloved husband of Anna Margaret (Ostrom) Gilbert

 

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World War Two Service:

Armament Sergeant Major, C.L. Gilbert

Enlisted in the Royal Canadian Ordnance Corps, which
was changed to Canadian Electrical and Mechanical
Engineers (R.C.E.M.E.).  Enlisted September 9, 1939 –
discharged August 15, 1945.

Lionel spent from January 1940 to June 1943 in the
British Isles.  With 1st Division Workshop R.C.E.M.E., he
took part in the Sicilian and Italian campaigns until March
25th when he left Italy from Livorgno (Leghorn), by tank,
carrying craft and landed at Marseilles, France.  Then by
road convoy to the battle zones in Belgium and Holland.
With 1st Tank Troop Workshop at Florence and Marseilles
and at Hertogenbosch, Nijimegen and Apeldoorn.

In memory of Charles Lionel Gilbert, a loving husband,
father and grandfather.

Wonderful memories woven in gold,
This is a picture we tenderly hold.
Deep in our hearts a memory is kept,
To love, to cherish and never forget.

Anna Margaret (Ostrom), Jean and Paul, Linda, Covey,
Scott, Kendal, Barbara, and Beverley.

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Visitors & Flowers

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