White crosses on Sugarloaf mountain repainted by Campbellton woman
The two faded white crosses on the rockface of Sugarloaf mountain in Campbellton have been repainted thanks to the efforts of a park employee who has a personal connection to the memorial.
Laura Doucet, the events co-ordinator at Sugarloaf Provincial Park, wanted to repaint the crosses after hearing the sad story behind them and because her uncle had a connection to the memorial.
On November 9, 1924, two sisters fell to their deaths from the top of the mountain. Newspaper reports from the time identified the young women as Mrs. Edmund McLean, 19, and Miss Lottie Ramsay, 17.
"They assume they got disoriented, because their footsteps were all over, in circles and they were leading off the face of the mountain," said Doucet.
A search party discovered their broken bodies the next morning near the foot of the mountain, a 600-700 foot drop, she said.
"The 19-year-old had a six-month-old baby at home."
That tragedy has been part of the local lore for more than 90 years and Sugarloaf Park's website has a pamphlet on the story.
For Doucet, the drive to raise money to repaint the crosses was personal.
While she doesn't know whose idea it was to originally paint the crosses on the mountainside, visible to everyone who goes by, she says it was her late uncle, Charles Thomas, who took a painting party up in 1967 to refresh the memorial, and had, in fact, been doing it for years.
Doucet was close to her uncle and when he died of cancer last year at a relatively youthful 64, she wanted to do something that had meaning for him. After the crosses were done, she paid him a visit.
"It was the first thing we did. We came down and went to his grave and told him."
It took Doucet the better part of a year to get everything organized to repaint the memorial. She received donations and Campbellton Home Hardware donated some of the paint needed.
On July 16, she ascended Sugarloaf with a group of local firefighters. It took five hours to get the work done.
"I had tears in my eyes near the end," Doucet said.
"Even that first brushstroke ... it was emotional."
Doucet says she will likely go back up in four or five years to refresh the memorial to the Ramsay sisters, who died so young.
