In 1996, B.C. families and self-advocates, working in partnership with government, achieved a major long-term goal - the closure of Woodlands, the last and largest of B.C.'s institutions for people with developmental disabilities, located in New Westminster.
Attached to Woodlands was a cemetery where over 3,000 former residents of Woodlands and Essondale (now Riverview Hospital, in Coquitlam) were buried. Since 1999, the BC Association for Community Living (BCACL) and the BC Self Advocacy Foundation (BCSAF) have been working to restore the cemetery and create a fitting memorial that honours those buried there and publicly recognizes the changes that have led to a better life in community for people with developmental disabilities who were once institutionalized.
During an oral history project with former residents of Woodlands and other institutions for people with developmental disabilities, the story of what happened to the Woodlands cemetery came to light. In 1977, when construction began for Queen's Park Hospital beside the Woodlands property, the cemetery was closed and redesignated as a park. All but a few of the existing gravestones were removed. Many were "recycled" or disposed of. Some were built into a barbeque patio on the Woodlands grounds for the use of staff, some were used to create a retaining wall for a creek flowing through the Woodlands property, while others were taken away and used at construction sites.
In 1999, BCACL and BCSAF secured an agreement from the provincial government to work jointly to restore the cemetery site. Delays have occurred due to planning issues related to development of the larger Woodlands property, but BCACL and BCSAF continue to work with the BC Building Corporation and the Ministry of Children and Family Development on this restoration project.
In consultation with the project Steering Committee, the landscape architectural firm of Erik Lees and Associates developed a design for the site. Volunteers and students from Douglas College worked to clean and document over 500 grave markers that were found in storage or recovered from the Woodlands grounds. For more information, contact Sue Scott at BCACL (604) 875-1119.
March 2006 - Work on the Woodlands Memorial Garden continues, and the projected completion date is some time in the summer of 2006. Watch this page for details about an opening event.
The memorial garden design includes three key elements. A memorial sculpture called the "Window Too High" references the experience of institution residents who could not see out of the high barred windows. A reflective pond will use a pattern of stones under water that echoes the pattern of burials in the cemetery. And finally, the names of all those buried in the cemetery will be restored to memorial walls placed in groups along a pathway that circles the cemetery site. Each memorial wall will have inset into it grave markers that have been salvaged, along with plaques engraved with names of those whose stones were not recovered. For more information, please contact Sue Scott at BCACL.
October 1, 2005 - At our 50th Anniversary Gala Celebration, BCACL presented landscape architect Erik Lees and his associates with a Partnership Award for design work on the Woodlands Memorial Garden.
August 2005 - On August 24, 2005 a story ran in the Vancouver Courier about the Memorial Garden Project and the landscape architect Erik Lees.
July 2005 - A story about the Woodlands cemetery and BCACL's Woodlands Memorial Garden Project ran on the front page of the national edition of the Globe and Mail on July 18, 2005. The story features BCACL's Self Advocacy Caucus chair, Richard McDonald, and BCACL's Director of Communications, Pat Feindel. BCACL has a database of the names of those buried in the cemetery. If you're looking for the record of someone who may be buried at Woodlands, you can contact Pat Feindel (pfeindel@bcacl.org).
December 2004 - At long last, the Woodlands cemetery restoration is underway on the site! After several years of painstaking planning, the Woodlands Memorial Garden Steering Committee is pleased that the vision to create a fitting memorial to those who were buried in this cemetery is now becoming a reality.
With a design for the Woodlands Memorial Garden created by Lees and Associates, contractors began in October to prepare the grounds for the installation of pathways and a series of memorial walls, as well as landscape features throughout the site. Meanwhile, others are working off-site to create the memorial wall panels that will incorporate over 500 grave markers that were recovered after being removed from the original cemetery. These memorial walls will also include granite plaques that list the names of all those buried in the cemetery for whom there are no grave markers.
If you go by the site in the next few weeks, it may look alarmingly like the ground is being dug up. However, rest assured that no graves will be moved or disturbed during this process, and only the very top surface of the ground is being worked in order to install pathways and the memorial walls.
This project would not have happened without the work of dedicated volunteers over the past several years. While Woodlands Memorial Garden Steering Committee members worked out the details of various physical, design and political challenges, other volunteers got their hands dirty by helping to clean grave markers, create an inventory of salvaged markers, and update the cemetery burial list. We are grateful to all these volunteers for the many hours they have contributed to the project.
As the physical work continues on the site, the Steering Committee will continue to develop interpretation and information materials that will be available to members of the public interested in researching a family member or the cemetery history.