There are 252 known burials in the Hedley Cemetery, with the first ones taking place in 1911.
The graves of a number of the people in the cemetery are marked, but there are other cases where the graves are unmarked, but it is known who is buried there.
However, there are unmarked graves where it will probably never be known who is in them since they go back many decades and there are no records existing anymore that we know of to help us with identification.
There were burials in the cemetery up until the late 1990s / early 2000s, after which the society that was managing the cemetery ceased to exist (maybe even before then – it’s possible that some burials have taken place even in the absence of a cemetery permit).
Since then, various people have taken care of individual family graves and parts of the cemetery (the Masonic Lodge and Loyal Order of Moose sections), but overall maintenance of the cemetery in a consistent and organized manner has been lacking.
Several years ago, various people with family members buried in the cemetery, plus people with an interest in the cemetery from an historical and tourist perspective, started talking about getting organized to maintain the cemetery and also to seek approval from the provincial government to reopen it for burials.
That led to the formation a few months ago of the Hedley Cemetery Society, which is incorporated as a nonprofit society in BC.
There are seven founding directors, although, sadly, Thom Leslie, who was also president of the Hedley Pioneer Museum, recently passed away.
Eric Vance is the only director not from the local area.
His interest is that his father was born in Hedley in 1917. He also has nine family members buried at the cemetery, including his great grandmother.
The inaugural meeting of the Society on Saturday September 28 at 1 p.m. at the Hedley Seniors Centre at 789 Scott Avenue.
Anyone with an interest in the cemetery or knowledge of its history is encouraged to come out and participate.
The society is operating on a shoestring budget right now and it is limited how quickly some of the goals can be accomplished, but the top priority is to keep the cemetery well maintained to reduce the risk of a wildfire and to discourage vandalism.
Marking the unmarked graves with simple crosses should also be done.
A website has jsut been set up and information is slowly being added to it.
It is hoped that it will become the central point of information collection and dissemination for everything to do with the cemetery, both currently and historically.
The website address is:
www.hedleycemetery.ca
The society gratefully acknowledges a Community Grant for $847 that we have just received from the RDOS with the assistance of Angelique Wood, Area “G” Director.
People are encouraged to become members of our society.
An annual membership, will be very modestly priced.
Eric C. Vance,