If you drive into the Cemetary in nearby Neepawa, just past the enormous black marker that says "De'ath" you will encounter a delicate stone sculpture sitting atop an old grave marker ... local lore tells us that this delicate sculpture gave rise to the title of a book by the late author Margaret Laurence. Though the real sculpture isn't an angel, she will forever be known to Laurence fans as The Stone Angel ...
If you venture further into the quiet cemetary, on a rise over looking the river valley and the golf course across the river, you will find where Margaret and her parents lie not that far from The Stone Angel that Ms. Laurence made famous to Canadian Literature fans ... But I recent something new about the Riverside Cemertary in Neepawa ...
Among the permenant "residents" in this cemetary, is a gentleman named Lewis Hickman who had the misfortune of simply being in the wrong place at the worst possible time, thereby finding himself amongst the 1 517 souls that perished on April 14th 1912 in the North Atlantic when the RMS Titanic struck an ice berg and sank ...
Lewis and his brother Leonard (Leonard was a resident of Neepawa) were crossing the Atlantic as passengers on that ill-fated vessel. Leonard had convinced his brother to join the waves of immigration that were opening up the Canadian west. The two brothers were amongst those who perished that night in 1912.
Later, amongst the 328 bodies that were recovered, the 256th body recovered was identified as Leonard Hickman and thanks to the generousity of a fraternal lodge Leonard belonged to, was shipped to far off Neepawa for burial.
The body arrived in the small prairie town just moments before the service, and when the casket was opened the error was realized. The man in the casket was clearly NOT Leonard, but the service continued anyway ... Later the deceased was identified as Leonard's older brother Lewis and the marker was erected with the proper name.
So, today on the Canadian Prairie, in the Riverside Cemetary of Neepawa not far from both the Stone Angel and Ms. Laurence's earthly remains, stands a simple marker that commemorates one of the victims of the RMS Titanic that thousands of kilometres away slipped under the icy waters of the North Atlantic ... The Canadian Prairie is about as far removed from the place where that mythic ship now rests on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean ... yet, the two places are forever linked ...
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