General Chat

There is one municipal cemetery (no church graveyards) in Vancouver City limits.

It is run by the City Council who have just announced changes to bylaws to "allow more sustainability.

More people can now be buried in single plots, allowing strangers to be buried together, and allowing 3 or more bodies in the single grave. Permission for a grave to be shared will have to be given by the family member in charge of the plot.

The bylaw allowing 2 caskets in a plot within 40 years (ie, re-use) was also revised, allowing the cemetery to determine whether to shorten that time span.

They will also be allowing "green burials", and for stone memorials to be replaced by alternative non-permanent markers mad of wood or other sustainable material(s).

These changes allow the Cemetery Committee to establish the expanded options which will then have to be approved by the city.

The city has operated the cemetery since 1887 (it was founded before then), covers 106 acres, and has around 92,000 grave sites and 145,000 interred remains.


I discovered a few years ago that one of OH's distant cousins who'd come here with his parents after WW1 was buried in the Military section, with only a small plaque in the ground to mark his grave. He enlisted in WW2, was badly injured in a vehicle accident while training, spent years in the Veterans Hospital in Vancouver and died early in the 1950s.

In our local cemetery when you "buy" a plot it is only for 25 years and the plot has to be paid for again after that time to ensure it stays "yours". My father died in 1973 and my sister paid again in 1998, although this was a small plot for the interment of ashes and not a full size grave.

In reality, the council don't often reuse the graves but it gives them the option if need be.

Kath. x

Maggie, that seems a short time to sell on plots.
When I bought the burial rights to my daughter's grave, I was told I have them for 75 years before they are reused. It seemed forever in 1974 but now it's only 30 years away now, not that I will be here to know about it.

I can't recall what I paid.

Lizx

Maggiewinchester, I don’t know when he bought the plot but it cost him £8. 10/- that as a lot of money back then. (1960s and 70s.)

Amongst my gran's hoardings, I found the burial slip showing where my grandad's first wife was buried, in 1920.
Went there, and a man was in her plot!
Turns out, in the 1960's, the Council sold on burial plots (whether 'inhabited' or not) after 33 years!

...and my grandad saved for ages for the green 'glass' chippings. :-(

I went to the records office hoping to find where two people were buried in the same grave which was a single grave, the two suspects were in different graves in different areas, also found my grandfather who died 1972 left £532 in his will, he was a retired Shepherd but he bought a plot of land to be buried in and was buried somewhere else.

:-( :-(