Cemeteries, and the gravemarkers that define them, are essential physical features of any community. These sacred places not only connect us to our pioneering ancestors, they offer a fascinating entrée into the world of Victorian gravemarker designs. Over the course of four years (2002-2005) David Butterfield undertook an exhaustive inventory of 212 cemeteries, photographing more than 8,000 gravemarkers. The resulting project, undertaken with his wife Maureen Devanik, was a major study entitled The Cornice in the Ground.
The Cornice in the Ground focuses on 125 of Manitoba’s most interesting gravemarkers, revealing the astounding legacy of Victorian-era graveyard architecture. Readers will be impressed by the variety of types – simple wooden crosses, powerful granite towers, elaborate marble concoctions, stately mausoleums. And by the creative use of materials: wood, granite, marble, concrete, iron, zinc, even glass. Not to mention the intoxicating wealth of symbols that Victorians carved into these monuments to add decorative appeal, but also to sometimes, achingly, express to eternity the character of a lost loved one.
But this study also offers a whole other layer of meaning to this subject. And that is how our forebears at the turn of the twentieth century responded to a world where death was so close at hand. When life expectancy was just 50 years (versus about 80 in 2025). When infant mortality was so cruelly high (187 deaths per 1,000 live births in 1900 versus just 5 in 2020). When accidents, often gruesome, were commonplace in farm and industrial situations.
Thus many entries in this study also highlight a subject that was completely familiar, fully accepted, in Manitoba 125 years ago – and which will often be completely foreign–even unbelievable–to a modern audience. Subjects like: posed photographs of the dead in their coffins; the formalized and demanding etiquette of mourning and mourning clothes; the huge and elaborate funeral processions; the horrible details of deadly childhood diseases; the fascinating approaches to early embalming and cremation procedures.
This survey of some of Manitoba’s finest monuments is enriched with more than 200 photographs and illustrations, and with historical anecdotes and recollections from 125 years ago.
The Cornice in the Ground
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Gravesites of Red River Settlement
- 3 Gravesites of the Young Province
- 4 Gravesites of the Mature Province, Cities Part 1
- 5 Gravesites of the Mature Province, Cities Part 2
- 6 Gravesites of the Mature Province, Town and Country Part 1
- 7 Gravesites of the Mature Province, Town and Country Part 2
The complete study is also available as a single PDF:
A Guide to Funerary Art in Manitoba
A Guide to Funerary Art in Manitoba has been developed to accompany the main study. This heavily illustrated guide will ensure that anyone interested in visiting Manitoba’s historic cemeteries will have the necessary background to interpret the complex design features and rich iconography that define this profound legacy.