This small cemetery is located in the Many Island Grazing pasture, a rural area northeast of Medicine Hat, Alberta. The cemetery is outlined with small rebar pins, five graves are marked with pins, and there are no markers of any kind with information on them. A little reearch reveals that this small plot holds the remains of five Schmidt family members some of whom perished during the flu epidemic one hundred years ago. The rest of the family moved to the United States.
There are a number of small abandoned cemeteries and lone graves in Cypress County, Alberta. This one is hard to spot. There is nothing nearby.
The cemetery sign is very small and is barely above ground level.
One of the grave markers.
So forlorn.
ReplyDeleteA lot of lives lost to the flu in 1918.
ReplyDeleteI wonder how hard it was to move to the US 100 years ago? Back then & up in the prairies it might have been just pack up & head south...
I think that it was that easy.
DeleteI bet most people pass that spot by and have no idea it is there.
ReplyDeleteI remember searching for this little cemetery when there was snow cover; it was completely invisible under the snow. Didn't actually find it until the following spring. Looked to me like a nice place to spend eternity.
ReplyDelete