Sunday evening in Stayner, Ontario, was quite an experience at the 17th Annual Memorial Candlelight Service at the Bethel-Union Cemetery. | 
Cemetery as restored by the Silvershoe Historical Society, 2014
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Several of the attendees are also of First Nations heritage and the ceremony began with an Ojibway Honour Song and smudging. I felt very much at home.
The ceremony took place in a pioneer burial grounds that the society has restored over the last twenty years, after it was neglected for decades. Janie Cooper-Wilson, the master of ceremonies, told me over 800 people are buried there, many of slave and native heritage. The event took place at night, in a beautiful birch grove, in a farming community about two hours north of Toronto. There were candle lightings, prayers for the ailing and passed, songs and hymns, local politicians, appeals and fund raising to save a nearby African Methodist Episcopal Church on its last legs, speakers and performers.
I was my usual self, rather quiet and shy, sitting in a corner, until my turn came near the end as the "Key Note Speaker," according to the programme. I then stood up, dropped into 'teacher mode' and began to perform a short story I'd written about an elderly white newspaper publisher, a black journeyman printer in his employ, and the young black woman they meet on the New York City docks during the 1783 Loyalist evacuation at the end of the Revolutionary War. I acted out the story, complete with 'voices' of the main characters.
Susan assures me I didn't make a fool of myself, that folks laughed and applauded in the right spots. Several people professes enjoyment at the end of the evening and Janie Cooper-Wilson sent a very nice thanks for our attending. Quite a time was had by all.
The ceremony took place in a pioneer burial grounds that the society has restored over the last twenty years, after it was neglected for decades. Janie Cooper-Wilson, the master of ceremonies, told me over 800 people are buried there, many of slave and native heritage. The event took place at night, in a beautiful birch grove, in a farming community about two hours north of Toronto. There were candle lightings, prayers for the ailing and passed, songs and hymns, local politicians, appeals and fund raising to save a nearby African Methodist Episcopal Church on its last legs, speakers and performers.
I was my usual self, rather quiet and shy, sitting in a corner, until my turn came near the end as the "Key Note Speaker," according to the programme. I then stood up, dropped into 'teacher mode' and began to perform a short story I'd written about an elderly white newspaper publisher, a black journeyman printer in his employ, and the young black woman they meet on the New York City docks during the 1783 Loyalist evacuation at the end of the Revolutionary War. I acted out the story, complete with 'voices' of the main characters.
Susan assures me I didn't make a fool of myself, that folks laughed and applauded in the right spots. Several people professes enjoyment at the end of the evening and Janie Cooper-Wilson sent a very nice thanks for our attending. Quite a time was had by all.
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