Funerals held each year for dozens of Calgarians who die alone
Originally published May 28.
His funeral was held on a cold grey Wednesday morning. No one came.
The casket was pale blue — the cheapest model. A single red rose lay on top, put there by the unseen hand of one of the McInnis & Holloway funeral home workers.
The chapel was beige and silent. There were no religious symbols, just the warm glow from two stained glass windows. The chairs set out in perfect rows, empty. The doors stood open, but there were no mourners to greet — no one to comfort, no friends to mark the passing of a life.
"Whether known and loved by many, or known only by a few, his life indeed mattered," intoned the celebrant standing near the casket.
But the only people to hear those words were four staff members, gathered to listen. It's something they do for funerals like this. The funeral for one of Calgary's forgotten.
Prince or pauper
They are the overlooked. The forgotten. The men and women here in Calgary who die unclaimed, whose passing goes all but unmarked. Sometimes we know their names, sometimes even that is a mystery.
They come from all different sorts of backgrounds — varieties of wealth and circumstance. Some choose to cut ties with their families, some just seem to fade until forgotten. Some had roots here while others came to Calgary for a better life.
It happens in our city dozens of times each year. It happens in every city, of course but these are our own. These are our neighbours, our people, members of our community.
"The city is a magnet for people who've come for work, and may have become disconnected from their family ... and have been here a long time. They end up passing away and they don't leave any information," said Dana Kingsbury.
Kingsbury is with the public trustee's office — the part of the provincial government that steps in when someone dies and no formal will, final wishes or next of kin can be found.
"Our mandate is to provide everyone with dignity in death, prince or pauper," she said.
The unclaimed
Sometimes it's in hospital or hospice. Sometimes they are found in their homes.
When a person dies unidentified or unclaimed, the body is handed over to the medical examiner. That office makes initial attempts to find relatives. If it can't, it then calls the public trustee's office.
Over a recent 13-month period there were 98 such referrals here in Calgary. Of those, 66 people remained unclaimed.
That's when the trustee's office begins a wider investigation and tries to build a back-story for the person. Kingsbury say it's rewarding work.
"Everyone has their own unique story, and that's the fascination of the job. These are not numbers to us, they are people and the satisfaction comes with being able to connect," she says.
Those connections can be made through a social insurance number, a driver's licence, or sometimes immigration papers. Investigators will go into the home of a person who's died and search for clues about their background, such as family letters or papers, anything that could connect them to "next of kin."
The hope is to find someone to claim the body. And sometimes, that someone is surprising.
A different memorial
"Everyone needs to be remembered," says Debbie Newman as she puts her hand on the wooden box.
"This was Ron — a wonderful man. He was 250 pounds of laughter. He was a good friend to so many of the people who stay here."
Newman is the CEO of the Calgary Drop-in Centre. Her office is a few floors removed from the usual bustling activity of clients coming and going.
On her bookshelf, between the files, photographs, and general office clutter, is an informal shrine to friends who died during their time here. Some of the ashes are kept in wooden boxes, made by the shelter's wood shop. Others are in colourful ceramic vases brought from home by the staff. These are the remains of people who, as part of their final wishes, asked to be kept at the Drop-In centre.
This place, this building, is not just somewhere to be — to stay warm and get a regular meal. It's community. It's a kind of family. A place to belong for the marginalized in society.
"They have fallen on hard times," says Newman. "They have made bad choices but they want to be accepted and make amends. Sometimes they just don't. Time is not on their side"
Ron, the man in the box, was a member of this community.
He showed up at the shelter during the downturn in 2008, says Newman. Ron had lost his job and his place at a residential hotel. So, he was hired at the centre as part of a work program, and lived there in an on-site apartment.
For many years Ron was part of the community — making friends and offering kindness to visitors. And then he got cancer.
Newman says the centre supported Ron in his final months. Knowing he would soon die, Ron wanted to give something back to his community.
"In his will, (he) designated an amount of money that would go towards a meal — once a year — for all the people who stay here," says Newman. "So every year we create a stew in his name. We call it rainbow stew."
Each year, at the Calgary shelter, about 70 people who are part of the community, die. Their average age is about 52 years old. It's a loss for their community, and for the staff.
"It's like working in a cancer ward," says Newman. "You know death is inevitable. How do you deal with those personal relationships you end up forming? Yet you don't want to become cold and you want to be able to provide as many effective services as you can."
Some of those who die leave special belongings to their community, small tokens like a necklace, or a special coin. Others, like Ron, leave themselves. For Newman, the little shrine in her office is a way of remembering special friends, and providing them dignity. As well, should the family of any of those who have died want the remains, they are there waiting to be reunited.
Still, according to Newman, "More often than not, there is no family to claim the body and it becomes an indigent burial."
'Potter's field'
In Calgary's early history, a time of comings and goings on the frontier, many people died unclaimed, abandoned.
Those who were then called the "indigent" were interred in a "potter's field" — an area of unmarked graves in the local cemetery. The name itself comes from the Gospel of Matthew and a reference to a public field where "foreigners" and outcasts were buried.
You can find a historical potter's field in Calgary's Union Cemetery. Between sections R and X, in an area of short mown grass surrounded by trees. There are no markers and most people buried here were "unknown."
The first burial was in 1904, the last in 1922. A final stop for our city's destitute and abandoned.
Today things are different.
If a person dies unclaimed in our city, the public trustee checks to see if they have any money in their accounts to pay for a funeral. If not, the Alberta Human Services income support program will foot the bill.
The funeral home makes arrangements from preparing the deceased, to finding a casket, to arranging for a burial plot. Because not all religions accept cremation as a way of interment, if the person who has died has left specific requests, the trustee always requests burial.
The hope, says Kingsbury, is to make sure a person is buried in a way that honours their religion and their cultural practices. She tells of a time when an investigator found a religious token in someone's apartment, and drove it to the funeral home on their own time to deliver it in person so it could be part of a ceremonial farewell.
An unmarked grave
The burial didn't take long.
A procession of white cars arrived at the edge of the cemetery. In the distance, a few graves had been prepared for the day's burials, with green cloth draped over mounds of dark brown earth. The cars stopped, and staff from the home stepped out.
They worked in silence, never hurrying the ritual. A silver metal cart was unfolded. The coffin removed from the car and placed on it. They paused for a few moments of silence, broken only by the din of city traffic, and then wheeled the body to its final destination.
It is impossible to identify an unclaimed person's grave here at Calgary's Queen's Park Cemetery. There are no more potter's fields in our city. Everyone here is treated equally in death — the next available plot is the one that will be given to an unclaimed person.
It costs about $3,045 for the province to bury someone here. The City of Calgary supplies the plot at half price. The grave will be unmarked. The province never pays for headstones. The wood shop at the Drop-in Centre had offered to make wooden markers for the unmarked graves, but city bylaws prohibit that.
Jeff Hagel from McInnis & Holloway says he sees these burials as a duty to the community.
"To sit at the graveside, where nobody is able to be in attendance, and you are there are the last moment in this person's life. To put them to rest. It is touching to know they were still able to have a dignified service and a proper burial."
This man was unclaimed, but he was Christian, and during the service for him appropriate prayers were said, a final blessing given.
As his casket was lowered into the ground the celebrant intoned, "The giving and the receiving. All have run their course. Your work here is finished. Rest in peace."
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Calgary at a Crossroads is CBC Calgary's special focus on life in our city during the downturn. A look at Calgary's culture, identity and what it means to be Calgarian. Read more stories from the series at Calgary at a Crossroads.
