How RCMP and their families came to share a resting place in the capital
Beechwood Cemetery and the Northwest Mounted Police were both just a few years old when the Ottawa burial ground erected its first monument to a mounted police officer killed in the line of duty.
His name was Const. Marmaduke Graburn, and he was just 19 years old when he was killed four months into his first tour of duty near Fort Walsh, N.W.T., on Nov. 7, 1879.
Graburn was buried beneath a simple headstone in Fort Walsh, but he’d enlisted with the force in Ottawa and his troopmates in the nation’s capital erected a granite monument at Beechwood as a token of their esteem. It bears the inscription “Primus Moriri” (first to die).
Thus began the long and continuing relationship between Canada’s national police force, now the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), and Beechwood Cemetery, now Beechwood Funeral, Cemetery, and Cremation Services.
They were born a few months apart in 1873 and since 2002 the treed and flowered grounds of Beechwood have been home to the RCMP National Memorial Cemetery, just blocks from RCMP headquarters and the home of the RCMP Musical Ride.
About a third of RCMP members are posted to Ottawa at some point in their careers. Many close out their service here. Yet, before 2002 there was no formal resting place for veteran officers and their families in the capital.
In 1999, James Patterson, Beechwood’s director of family services, sent letters to all 900-plus members of the association representing retired RCMP, asking them if they’d be interested in a national cemetery at Beechwood. More than 700 said yes.
“We opened the area itself in 2002 and by 2006 about 150 people had purchased,” said Patterson, who’s been at Beechwood nearly 24 years. “It went over so well that the RCMP, with the encouragement of the Ottawa veterans association, wanted to get involved further and take on more of a central role.”
In late 2006, under the guidance of the commissioner, it was officially named the RCMP National Memorial Cemetery. The RCMP at that time recognized all of its cemeteries as national cemeteries, including the regimental cemetery at Depot Division in Regina and several historic sites in remote locations.
Beechwood’s is the only one of the cemeteries open to families, the result of a fall 2001 meeting Patterson had with retired RCMP veterans and their spouses. They were discussing the options for an RCMP cemetery, primarily an arrangement similar to the regimental cemetery at the RCMP depot in Saskatchewan.
“As we were discussing this, I could see that one of the spouses appeared reticent,” he said. “So I asked everybody to stop for a minute because I wanted to ask her if she had something she wanted to say.”
“I do,” she replied. “I’ve been to depot and I really don’t like the idea of being relegated to a marker at the foot of my husband’s grave.”
When Patterson told her that’s the tradition, she shook her head and said: “I didn’t bow at my husband’s feet in life, and I won’t be doing it in death.”
He then suggested taller stones, capable of bearing two names instead of one. But he was told some families would want children buried with them.
It was then that Patterson suggested a family cemetery that would allow RCMP veterans and their loved ones to make their own choices, a novel idea at the time.
“From there, it became much more of an open approach,” he said. “We started to talk about the inclusion of families and how it was so important to the RCMP because it was a part of what they did, moving with family from place to place. This was a way to recognize that family part of what they do.”
So, as it is in life, family became central to the RCMP cemetery at Beechwood.
The RCMP National Memorial Cemetery is open to current and retired members, civilian members, special constables, civil servants with at least 20 years of uninterrupted service with the RCMP, along with their family members.
Beechwood dedicated a plot of land with more than 4,000 gravesites and built two granite walls with the capacity to hold thousands of niches in the years ahead.
Families can choose between urns and caskets, with up to eight urns per grave. Monuments can bear a family crest and surname, along with the RCMP crest, and are available in a variety of colours with space for eight or more names. There are two granite columbaria as well.
Almost as old as the 150-year-old country itself, Beechwood is a unique reflection of the Canada beyond its gates. It is a final resting place for virtually every element of society, all sharing the same ground, memorialized with the love and remembrance of family and friends.
For more information, visit beechwoodottawa.ca or call (613) 686-3660.