ROTHENBURGER – Three headstones by the river, and a rediscovery of ancestors

RELATIVES SHOW UP in the darndest places at the darndest times. Three of mine did it this week.

Their headstones are side by side in a hayfield off Dairy Road. Massive bank erosion there has brought the river’s edge to within 30 yards of where they rest.

Their names are Alexander Brown, Annie Brown and Kitty McAuley. I didn’t know they were there until I went on a media walk-about to look at the big slide that took away several acres from landowner Wendy Robertson and deposited it in the North Thompson.

She has protected the gravesite for the 30 years she’s owned the place — even installing an iron fence around it — and is worried the river will soon claim them. The headstones are modest and worn from time and weather and it’s impossible to read some of the dates. They’ve been mentioned in various media stories this week on the erosion issue simply as “historic grave markers” of seemingly unknown people.

But they’re much more than that to me. As soon as I heard the names on the markers during our visit I was fascinated to learn more, because Browns and McAuleys are closely connected to McLeans, my mom’s side of my genealogy. So, to my family history files I went.

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Mel Rothenburger is a regular contributor to CFJC Today, publishes the ArmchairMayor.ca opinion website, and is a recipient of the Jack Webster Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award. He has served as mayor of Kamloops, school board chair and TNRD director, and is a retired daily newspaper editor.  He can be reached at mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.