Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Tombstone Tuesday: Our headstone is bigger than yours

My approach to this headstone was from the back; the front of the stone faces away from the other stones in this section of the cemetery. When I saw it initially I thought it was a stone wall, not a marker. The marker appears to be only for father and son, but that is not the case.
One of the interesting, but little known facts about the vicinity of this 'larger than life' grave, is that next to it is an unmarked grave. Few know it, but the unmarked grave next to one of the trees which stands by the Plunkett-Magann grave is the final resting place of a most public man, a man they called Mayor of All the People, one of the most celebrated mayors of the City of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, Victor Kennedy Copps, who died in 1988.

According to Paul Wilson, "Vic Copps rarely said no to his people. He rode horses in parades, drove go-carts, put his smiling face forward for pie-throwing contests, bounced on trampolines, rode in bike races and marched hundreds of miles in fundraising walkathons. In March 1976, he was running near the back of the pack in the 'Around the Bay Road Race' when he had a heart attack. A week earlier, he had turned 57." His heart attack resulted in brain damage, and he was never again the same man.

In Hamilton, there now stands a coliseum which bears his name. It was the choice of his family that his grave bear no stone. He was so much admired that the family didn't want the grave used as a site of pilgrimage.

Reference: Paul Wilson, The Hamilton Spectator, 2008.
Photographs: Copyright ©J. Geraghty-Gorman
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...