I SOLVE A 107-YEAR-OLD MYSTERY... SORTA ... NOT REALLY

GRANUM, ALBERTA

Hey you there. Yes, you. Question: Ever drive by Granum on Highway 2? Ever noticed the cemetery with the one solitary grave outside the caragana bushes? Ever wondered why?

If you answered ‘no’ to those this miniature newspaper is going to be bor-r-r-ing. If, however, you have passed Granum on Hwy 2 and noticed this irregularity, you will not be bored, simply disappointed. The answer is there is no answer.

Mary Fitzpatrick died April 16, 1908. According to her daughter Nellie, she was the first to be buried in Granum’s new cemetery. Only, according to 1908 town council minutes, it was still being surveyed and no pricing scheme was established until later that November when they landed on $1 per foot space. (So, for example, it cost $5 to bury a five-foot-tall person.)

Talk to local historian Mike Sherman and he’ll give you the story the family tells—it is a simple survey error—as well as the multitude of fanciful scenarios more than a century of storytelling has inspired, none of which he says he believes.

One hypothesis is that Mary’s husband, Ebenezer Chugg, was something of a tightwad. [EDITOR’S NOTE: Of course, Ebenezer.] Once the price per cemetery lot was established by foot, he was just too cheap to pay the five bucks or whatever, roughly equivalent to a week’s pay at a good wage.

Historic graves abound all over this neck of the prairie, explains Mike; many couldn’t afford the burial cost, and farmers and homesteaders often buried loved ones in the backyard. Besides Mary was his second wife and whattayathinkheis?—made of money!?

Mary was his

second wife and

whattayathinkheis?—

made of money!?

Other tales go she was an unfaithful wife or died by suicide, neither of which permitted burial on hallowed land. Unluckily for the inquisitive among us today, “the real story went to the grave with [Ebenezer],” says Mike. Today, Fitzpatrick’s curious placement outside the hedged confines of Granum’s cemetery leaves stories that cannot be confirmed, only denied.

My bigger question is for the groundskeeper who planted the bushes and meticulously left Mary out. (Really man? You’re better than that.) “Why the hedge was planted on the other side I don’t know,” admits Mike.

In the intervening decades since Mary’s eternal snub, the Town of Granum has been asked about finally including Mary’s grave into the cemetery, but no one seems in much of a hurry or cares too much so long as Mary is not forgotten.

And that, she certainly is not. x