Uncles inspired nephews, brothers stood alongside brothers, and marriage bound four siblings of one remarkable family into a shared tapestry of honor. They did not seek glory; they simply answered when their country called, brought their technical skills and quiet strength to the front, and returned home to St. Marys and Perth County to build our community with those same steady hands.

In the late 19th century, diphtheria; often termed the "strangling angel", was a fearsome, highly contagious bacterial infection that caused severe airway blockage, high fever, and rapid systemic collapse. Before antitoxins became widely available later in the 1890s, a severe case carried a devastatingly high mortality rate. His admission to a major urban hospital like Harper underscores the desperate effort by doctors to keep his airway open and save his life.

Looking through the Perth County surrogate court files from 1863, several names stand out as men who cleared the timber, tilled the soil, and established the roots of our local townships. When John McTavish passed away in 1863 at around fifty years of age, he left behind a legacy deeply woven into the Scottish settlement of North Easthope. Standing in Saint Andrew's Cemetery today, reading his headstone set against quiet rolling fields, it is easy to forget the sheer physical

Three stones gave up their names, one base reminded me that not every story is ready on command, and the second row proved again what Trinity always seems to prove: this ground is not quiet because nothing happened here, but because so much did. For now, I carry Georg, Barbara, and Elisabetha with me, and I leave their neighbours to rest under the moss a little longer. I will return, wearing my Eternal Care Stone Services shirt and ready for another day of discovery.

The Holy Trinity series will invite you to join as the community comes together in raising the first church, building the current, and the changes along the way. It will explore the restoration of century old stones, discuss the techniques used to restore and document a cemetery and provide insight to the importance of maintaining these artifact as long as possible. In addition, I will also dive into the personal lives and stories of the neighbours, friends and family interre

“He came from Turrerich, in Glen Quaich, in 1832, having left the Glen that year about the middle of June, and arrived at North Easthope on the 1st of September; eight families from the same place emigrated and travelled together and settled in the township and in the adjoining one, South Easthope.”

John had a good idea what it was going to take, when he first stepped onto Lot 15, it was not a farm. It was a wilderness so thick that daylight barely touched the ground. “I commenced to improve on my land (it being then a perfect wilderness, travelled only by the Indian) late fall of 1834. The snow was on the trees then I recollect well, for, on beginning to chop down some trees to build my small ‘shanty’ with the snow at the stroke of the axe would be falling down upon me.

I’ve always carried this quiet belief that no one truly wants to be forgotten. Even the humblest life holds a hope; that someone, somewhere, will remember we were here. That we mattered, that our story didn’t simply dissolve into the soil, or drift away on the winds of time. It’s that belief, that has shaped me for years, but it wasn’t until recently that it became something more than a feeling. It became a responsibility. My journey into the unmarked graves of St.Marys began