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2005 comment
editI am researching the death of my maternal grand-uncle, Thomas Gray of Lerwick, Shetland Islands, who was Chief Engineer aboard the Curaca which sank as a result of the Halifax Explosion of 1917. Although he was a British merchant seaman, his name does not appear in the Commonwealth Graves & Memorial records. Furthermore, I discovered that the records of British merchantmen from 1914-1917 were "destroyed" for some unknown reason, so I have no way of getting any other documentation on him. I have to assume that his body was never found because his "fatality" number on the list in the Halifax Explosion Remembrance Book * is 1534, indicating that his loss was accounted for well after the explosion. Fortunately, ships' lists supplied the names of crews, otherwise my grand-uncle's death might never have been recorded anywhere. I have no memory of a stone to him in our home-town cemetery in Shetland, Scotland, but I will be trying to find out if he is listed among the war dead there.
According to the web-site of the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, "[due} to the efforts of a grandson of one of the victims and a local historian, the names of the victims were added to the ship's monument located at Halifax's Fairview Cemetery in 2001." ^
I would be very interested in finding and thanking the people who were responsible for honoring the names of those non-military men from all over the world who died on that awful day. If I ever get to the east coast, the Fairview Cemetery will be at the top of my list of places to visit. I have the gold pocket-watch my grand-uncle bought for my grandmother on her engagement in 1913, so even if his body was never found, a piece of him is here on Canadian soil.
Peggy Young, Edmonton
Fairview Cemetery
editMy maternal grandparents, uncles and other family members are buried in this cemetery. When we visited Nova Scotia many years ago, we went there. I noticed at the time they are buried a few feet from the Titanic graves. How interesting. I thought. Some vandals had broken the top off of the obelisk, but was repaired by members of the family who still lived in Halifax. I have been writing my memoirs for my children and grand children and have included this bit of information.