NOT FORGOTTEN
Lynne Mclellan and Geri Street join Obert Friggstad at Nutana Cemetery on Tuesday to view a new tombstone for Nevil Pendygrasse, who drowned in 1887. Friggstad, who lives in the Pendygrasse House and paid for the marker, has long been fascinated by the pioneer family’s history. Mclellan and Street are the great-nieces of Pendygrasse.
The unmarked grave of Nevil Pendygrasse, the first person known to have drowned in the South Saskatchewan River, now has a headstone, thanks to the man who bought the Pendygrasse House.
Obert Friggstad hadn’t lived in the house on St. Henry Avenue for long before he learned of the family history. In 1972, Friggstad saw an ad in the paper for a house by the river; although his wife was busy, he went to go see the house anyway.
“I came home and said, ‘I bought it,’” Friggstad recalled. “There was just no question when I saw the house that it had the potential I was looking for. But it wasn’t until I started poking around at the local history that I found the house was listed there and learned a bit about the Pendygrasse family.”
Although Friggstad isn’t related to the family, he said it’s been fun learning the history and installing the headstone, because in the 46 years they’ve been in the Pendygrasse House, they have also become attached to the family and its history.
The Pendygrasse sons, Nevil, Harold and Sefton, came to Saskatoon from Ireland in 1885, aged 15 to 19. The boys were sent ahead by their widowed mother, Sarah, and their sister, Muriel. Nevil Pendygrasse, the oldest son, drowned in a ferry accident in 1887, just weeks before his mother and sister were to arrive.
Lynne Mclellan, Nevil Pendygrasse’s great-niece, said it isn’t entirely clear how he died, but he may have been knocked unconscious, possibly from slipping and hitting his head, and then fell overboard.
Pendygrasse was buried in the Nutana Cemetery on Ruth Street, also known as the Pioneer Cemetery, but as the years went on, although Friggstad said there may once have been a marker, it was gone — which prompted him to buy a headstone to install at the site.
“I believe everybody should have a marker somewhere that identifies that they lived and were here,” Friggstad said.
“That’s why I would really like to see more done at this cemetery. Almost all of the cemeteries, the graves are all marked and identified, but this one here there was a whole bunch of history that hasn’t really been honoured.”
Friggstad said in all of his efforts, he wanted to make sure what he was doing for the Pendygrasse family was as accurate as possible.
“Even within all of this, there can be uncertainty,” he said. “They didn’t even spell his name right in the records, but there’s nobody who had a name even close to that name — so somebody didn’t write it correctly.”