MAGGIE

MORPHEUS & MEARES ISLAND PANO

John & Jane Grice

Jane was born 6 days after John and died 3 days after him! Which would make her 3 days younger than John when she died!
They also were born in the same town & I assume died in the same place as well?

They died during the “Great Depression” as well. The medical report listed their deaths as being “cardiac failure”. John died of “Enteritis” & Jane of “Bronchitis”.

I’ve noticed that people who are together for a long time,usually die soon after their mate.
There’s something to be said about that!

Donald Mackenzie

This fellow died at the early age of 26! He died in 1942. I didn’t see any Military markings,so I don’t think he died because of the war?
Update – April 1st,2013
A relative of Mr.Mackenzie’s told me this about him…….”He would have been my great uncle. He was working at a logging camp in Chamis Bay, near Zeballos running his tugboat. He was working alone and his arm got caught in the winch. By the time he was able to stop it, it mangled his arm and shoulder. The nearest doctor was in Esperanza, at least 4 hrs away. Storms prevented him from getting out and gangrene set in. He died in Esperanza October 19, 1942.. His Father, Also Donald MacKenzie moved to Tofino in 1925 and settled the land now known as MacKenzie Beach.” (Ryan Mackenzie April 1st,2013)

Kimoto & Komatsu

I’m not sure what is going on here?
On the far left is what I believe to be the Mother? Kamejiro. (I’m not sure of the spelling?) She lived to be 51 years old.
It looks like she had a son when she was 43. Yoshio M. He appears to of died 3 years later! She would of been 45 than and it must of been hard on her!
On the right is someone named Kijiro. I do not know if this is a male or female? I’m not familiar with Japanese names? Sorry.
If this is the father,he was a younger father. She would of been 43 and he 24 when they had little Yoshio in 1925.

Notice the porcelain flowers under the glass dome. The dome is protected by a iron cage. It stops falling tree debris during wind storms.

Update:         “Hello, Kamejiro Kimoto is my maternal grand-father (on the far left). His wife was Tama Kimoto (nee Yanai) and her gravesite is in Toronto at the Mount Pleasant Cemetary. Kamejiro passed away at the age of 51. His son Yoshio M. (Major) was his youngest son out of ten children (four daughters: Frances (Omori), Mary (my mom) (Madokoro), Patricia (Kobayashi), Margaret (Sora) and six sons: Harold, Robert (Bobby), Tom, Jack, George, Major). Little “Major” accidentally drowned and that must have been so sad and difficult for my grandparents and my mom and her siblings. The Kimoto family has lived on the West Coast (Tofino and Ucluelet) since the 1920’s (except for the 1942 evacuation and internment of Japanese Canadians and their lives prior to returning to the coast in the 1950’s).”

I have no knowledge about the person with the surname of “Komatsu”.

Marlene Madokoro Mortensen   (March 1st,2016)

Sakauye Jinmatsu

This person was born in 1881 and died in 1938.I say person because I do not know if this was a male or female?
I find it odd that their was no month for birth or death? I assume that the people who buried this person did not know him or her very well?
Someone who knows Japanese may be able to read the wooden tombstone?
The Japanese settled here in Tofino but were rounded up after Pearl Harbour and held in detention camps.
After the war,the Japanese did not or could not settle back into Tofino.

Update:July 23rd,2015 – Just found out from a relative (Chris Sakauye) that this person was a male. Sakauye Jinmatsu was his Great Grandfather.

Update: July 29th,2015 -I’m Chris’s uncle and I’ll leave a little more background on Jinmatsu. He was buried on Morpheus island and his grave marker was joined by the more modern one in the late 90’s by his surviving children at the time. The Sakauye family, during the early part of the century (up to 1942) lived on the Eik property and the Eik cedar was well remembered by all.

Mr. Jacob Hendrik Arnet & Mrs. Johanna Nes Arnet

Because it was raining/sleeting today,the light was extremely bad! On days like this I always upload a shot from the old cemetery for filler.

Jacob died at the age of 71 on July 24th,1941 & his wife, Johanna joined him 7 months later.
These two have the best tombstones in the cemetery!
I know one of their Grand Children. Roland Arnet.(Roly) He has a Oyster farm up in Lemmins Inlet.

Mr.Kristian August Arnet

He was born on August 6th,1873 in Norway.
Died on December 11th,1933 at the age of 59 years+.
I wonder if his middle name was chosen because of the month he was born in?

Rosalind J.D.Hansen

The clouds ,rain and wind stopped me from getting out today!
So here is another shot from the old Cemetery out on Morpheus Island.
This one is of a young woman who died at the early age of 24. She died on the 17th of January,1937 and her baby died the day before (16th).
I would assume that the woman died of child birth?
After her baby died,it must of shattered her! The birthing process & death of her baby must of been too much for her soul and body to take! Sometimes a trauma is so powerful, that a person cannot recover and succumbs!
There is great sadness written upon this tombstone.
UPDATE: Read below comment by Ryan Mackenzie.

Mr. JOHN M. EIK

I didn’t get out today. It was raining most of the day.
Having said that……..I did see on the Satellite/Radar site that a large clearing was coming! The sun is setting earlier,so I wasn’t sure when that clearing would arrive?
Turns out it did arrive about 1 hour before sunset. Too late for me to take advantage of it.

Here is a shot from the old Cemetery on Morpheus.
This is Mr. John M.Eik.
He has a local road named after him. However,the road has not been pushed through. There is a huge ancient Western Red Cedar right smack dab in the middle. It is Tofino’s most famous tree!
A local land developer tried to cut this 1000 year old tree down! It became a lightening rod for all the local environmentalists!
Several people camped up in the canopy of the tree to stop it from being cut down!
Cooler heads prevailed and the tree was allowed to stand. As long as it was secured from falling over and damaging the moron developers property!
I donated 16 of my prints to help raise money for this collective effort!

So it has come to be known as the “EIK ST. TREE”. Named after this fellow.
I will try to find more out about Mr. EIK and update accordingly.

Arthur Henry Hovelaque

This is a bit of a strange one?
As you can see by the birth/death dates on this tombstone,this was a baby boy that died after only 5 months!
Heres the strange part. He’s all by himself in the largest plot of the Cemetery!
You could fit a dozen people in this plot which is outlined by expensive stone work! They must of had money to afford a large plot of this nature.
This is not a paupers grave!

This is where I am going to take a guess at what is going on here…….
The Hovelaque’s must of settled here and purchased the family plot with the intention of one day ,using it.
They had a baby boy on March 22nd,1922. I do not know why,but Arthur died 5 months later on August 18th,1922!
I’ll bet that both (or one?) of the parents did not want to live in the place that their little boy died in anymore and moved. Abandoning the family plot and little Arthur.
It makes me sad to think of this. A small child all by it’s self on a isolated island.
I will try to find out more about Arthur.
Notice the porcelain flowers at the base of the tombstone! I guess at one time,they placed them on graves? They certainly last a long time!
If they had any colour on them,it was gone a long time ago! I couldn’t even give a haphazard guess at when they would of been placed there?

The “Garrarad’s”

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This is the family plot for the Garrard’s on Morpheus Island.
The mothers name was Annie S. Garrard and the fathers name was Francis S .(Frank)
They had two children,F.R.B. and Edward Theodore. I do not know what the F.R.B. stands for?
F.R.B. was the first born and died at the young age of 28yrs old on Oct 25th/1919. For some reason,he has two tombstones! Not sure why? It might be to recognize his serving in the W W 1? He was a “Sapper”.
His younger brother Edward, died at the early age of 14 months, Jan 17th,1908.
Frank was the Lighthouse keeper on Lennard Island and later,the Telegraph operator in town.
Annie died at the age of 68 and than 6 years later Frank at the age of 79.
They use to live in Port Alberni,but am not sure?

UPDATE: (Oct 29th,2011) I found out some info on the older boy FRB.
FRB stands for Francis Robert Burdet and was born on November 9th,1890 in Nanaimo.
He was a Gas Engineer and signed up on December 12th,1916. He married a woman named Eileen who lived on the Ilse of Wight England.
He was 5 feet 9 inches tall and died in Balfour B.C.
Balfour was the TB centre,so I am assuming he died of Tuberculous?

GILBERT

On rainy days like today……..I will be posting some shots from the old cemetery.

The old cemetery is on Morpheus Island. I believe there are 44 souls buried there. I haven’t been to many old Cemetery’s ,but this one is by far the most beautiful I have ever seen! It would take alot to beat this place!
I couldn’t think of a better spot to spend eternity!

The only writing on this tombstone was “Gilbert”! No surname or date! Not sure why that is?
Even the name has faded so much, that I can hardly read it anymore.
There is however another cedar tombstone that had crumbled into the earth right in front. I can only assume that it was his wife?
This is the very first tombstone you see when going up the forest path and I might add that if it were not for a large tree falling and blocking the original pathway,Gilbert would not be the first in line to greet you!
A big windstorm a few years ago blew down a large tree across the pathway and people started going around and slowly made a new path!

I kind of think of Gilbert as the Sentinel of the Cemetery. He watches the entrance way.

Mr. Jakob Flovik

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I made a promise to Mr.Flovik a number of years ago.
The stone carved knob at the top of the tombstone had broken off and was laying at the base. Tree roots had tilted the tombstone so much so that it must of fallen over and snapped off the knob? The tombstone is so slanted now that to keep the tombstone vertical,some small stones had to be placed strategically behind at the base!
Anyways,I promised him that I would fix it.
After many more visits and years later,I still hadn’t fixed it!
I decided to get serious and getuur done!
I took over my portable drill,some mortar and a brand new concrete drill.
I drilled into the tombstone half the length of the drill bit and did the same for the knob. I than used the actual drill bit as a metal rod to secure the two pieces together. I filled the holes with mortar and put some around the broken gap as well.
I thought I did a excellent job!
I took a friend there months later and showed her my handy work. While looking at it closer, I noticed that I had accidentally put the knob on upside down!
You see, an even smaller knob had been on the top of the large knob and it had snapped off! When I picked up the knob to drill into it,the break I saw first was the top one. I hadn’t noticed that there was two breaks! One on each end of the knob!
If I never told you,you would never know by looking at it!
I apologized to him about the screw up and hope he would understand. I’m sure he was happy anyways!

This fellow died at the very young age of 22. Your heart goes out to a young soul like this. Thats why I thought I’d help him out!

View From Morpheus Island

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I was at the cemetery on Morpheus and spotted these kayaks out in the channel. I had trouble finding a hole through the trees to shoot them.

Morpheus Island Cemetery

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Japanese Grave Site

I’ve noticed that Asians sometimes have porcelain flowers at their grave sites. They usually have a glass dome over the flowers. That black metal cage is to stop falling limbs etc from shattering the dome/flowers.

Brinky

I was curious about this grave stone. It didn’t give a date of birth or death? I asked Adrienne Mason about this fellow. She is a local Historian and writes very interesting books!
She contacted a woman who knew about “Brinky”. Dr. Robertson’s daughter (no name given) said this……

“Brinck died in our house – now a vacant lot on the waterfront.
He was leaving Tofino to work in Ottawa and had packed up when he got
pneumonia. My Mother was nursing him. These were the day’s before
antibiotics. My Dad as his physician and Hilmar Wingen as the master
mechanic tried to save him by building an oxygen “mask to assist his
breathing but it did not save him. He was buried on Morpheus Island. I
believe that there is an identifiable marker there.”
Brinky was very involved into the Theater! He not only wrote and put plays on in town,but did many of the customs/backdrop etc!

UPDATE: (August 18th,2014) a friend sent me this letter from a Ron Macleod. He was a child when he met Brinky. This is what he recalled……….

“Some of my fractured remembrances of Mr. Brinkman.
He came to Tofino from Ahousat where he had been working for Mr. Gibson (senior – I forget his first name). Gibsons at the time had a store, a small sawmill and a pilchard reduction plant.
Mr. Brinkman took a job as night watchman with the Life Saving Service. He rented a house across from where the hotel now stands.*
He was loved by all in Tofino** Mr. Brinkman would write and produce skits and plays. He would organize concerts with entertainment provided by singers, dancers, actors and in 1933 it included a group of men from the Relief Camp at Long Beach. Invariably, the themes would be light-hearted, humorous – all designed to overwhelm the Depression blues. He would also produce skits for the school concerts and then serve as Director. I acted (???) in at least two of his skits. In one I had to sing “Will you come with me, my pretty maid” and it turned out to be a howler. I sang it as “Will you come wish me…)” and although there were several rehearsals he never corrected me, thinking I suppose, that it might tickle the audience’s funny bone, and so it did. I can still hear the laughter.
The marvel was his painting and sketches. He had an imagination that us boys could not grasp because his knowledge was beyond our ken. He designed, made and painted the scenery for the stage. He would make what we considered to be wild posters for the various celebrations. These brightly coloured posters were awesome to adults and children alike – the colour orange lingers in my memory as a dominant colour. The frightful, mythical gargoyles and monsters depicted left us children in a stage between disbelief and belief. What if they were real? What then? Our little minds could not come to grips with the rich flow of wonders that sprang forth from his brain. And so, we children were content to tolerate the unknown world he put before us, just happy to be in his presence. Why even my father, who had a low opinion of the English, respected and admired this chap who spoke with a strong, distinctive English accent.
Cousins Murdo, Norman and Donald, my brother Ian and I spent some happy times in his home. He was always encouraging us to work hard at school. He was especially fond of Murdo and encouraged him to borrow his books and do some serious reading. Indeed, Murdo was given first choice of Mr. Brinkman’s library and other remembrances after he died. The rest of us were allowed to pick out one remembrance token.
Mr. Brinkman started his watch at 6 PM. On a summer evening we MacLeod children would sometimes visit him at the Station and pester him with questions and beg for his stories, which were endless. He introduced us to Winnie the Pooh and many other fictional characters. For us children he was a door-opener to many fictional and real adventures and gave us a sense that there was a world beyond our cocoon called Tofino.
He had received his call to Ottawa shortly before he was stricken with a severe cold that became pneumonia and kept him bedridden and house bound for some time. I recall, in part, the day he donned warm clothing and wrapped a grey wool scarf around his neck and went up the road for a short walk. Norman, Donald and I were outside his home when he returned, guided by two young ladies (Margaret Hansen?? and her cousin Alma Hansen?? Or was it Bonnie and Gretel Arnet? – I don’t remember). Behind him was a group of children just thrilled to see him up and about. Alas! We never did see him alive again. He was too soon dead.
And bitter tears we children wept.
And today I shed tears for having forgotten so much about one who meant so much to children such as myself.

*I believe you lived there yourself for a time; also, the MacKenzies before Mr. Brinkman. And, after you the storekeeper, Ted Bell who worked for the Coop Store.
** With the exception of Major George Nicholson. I mention this because their one-on-one feud led to a boisterous Halloween night that led to Mr. Nicholson, then proprietor of the Hotel above Alex MacLeod’s home, being charged with assault for shooting at some teen age lads with a blast of bird shot from his shotgun (the only one hit was Norman Arnet whose wounds were superficial because of the range). Apparently Mr. Nicholson believed that Mr. Brinkman had encouraged the lads to pester Nicholson at Halloween with endless mischief, including tying the front doors in such a way that Mr. Nicholson could only get out through the back door. I remember it well as I was at the site when the door tying was going on but not involved in any way because I was far too young (I think I was in Donald MacLeod’s care). I forget the outcome of the Court case but I have a sense that there was an order for Nicholson to keep the peace.”

Ron Macleod 

Morpheus Island Cemetery

I went out today with a friend to Meares Island and Morpheus Island ,cemetery.
This is a shot of the clearing where the cemetery is on Morpheus. The undergrowth was too thick to see the tombstones.
There are 44 people buried there. They stopped burying people there when they had a “unfortunate” accident.
It went like this.
A fishermen had died and they took him over to Morpheus island on top of paddles that had been placed across the top of the gunnels of the boat. This made the center of gravity too high and when they hit the swirling water near the island( a well known and tricky spot because of the strong tides),the boat overturned and the coffin was lost in the water. The body even fell out and they had to drag for the body.
That was the last burial on the island. They all decided that they had better get a cemetery on the main land for safety’s sake!
Fred Tibbs is also buried there as well. A well known local who died himself at a early age of 35 years old on July 5th,1921. I took this shot from his grave side.
I talk about him in my blog.
Look under cemetery.

Morpheus Island Cemetery

This is one of the 44 souls here on Morpheus. It is a Japanese individual.
The Japanese were very prominent in Tofino. It’s only after Pearl Harbour and their interment into prison camps that they disappeared from the area. They lost all their possessions and land.
A sad time in our collective history to say the least.
In this shot,there is a metal cage surrounding a glass globe that is protecting some ceramic flowers. The cage protects the glass from being broken by falling tree debris during wind storms.

Immature Perched on Morpheus Island

I was going by the north end of Morpheus island and this immature was perched nicely.
The limb extended out over the water and I very slowly went right underneath him,much to the dismay and curiosity of Junior!

Fred Tibbs Grave on Morpheus Island

I sometimes take friends out on a tour and usually take them over to the old cemetery. It’s very beautiful over there. I couldn’t think of a more beautiful place to be for eternity!
This grave stone belongs to Mr. Frederick Tibbs. He was from Surrey England and lived on a local island.
He took care of a small harbour light and had a unfortunate accident happen to him.
He had rowed over to this platform that had the oil light on it and replaced the fuel container,trimmed the wick etc. Unfortunately for him ,a wave must of gently lifted his row boat off of the platform behind him,and it was set a drift.( He sometimes use to swim from his island to town. )
He discovered the problem and because he was a really good swimmer, decided to try to swim for the boat. Unfortunately while swimming for it,a small motorized boat came by and found the boat a drift. This person put the boat in tow and left. Tibb’s should of turned around and gone back to the platform and wait for help,but instead decided to continue on to Clayoquot Island.
He than, just before reaching the island had to go through a thick patch of sea weed . The over exertion of the swimming,hypothermia,and the shock did him in. He made it to the island ,but died of a heart attack.
He died when he was 35 yrs old.