Angel statue in New Brunswick cemetery honours lives lost in past pandemics

Angel statue looks over victims of past pandemics A new guardian angel statue in Moncton’s Elmwood Cemetery honours hundreds of lives lost during previous pandemics.

MONCTON, N.B. — A new guardian angel statue that sits in a New Brunswick cemetery honours lives lost in past pandemics.

Over the years, hundreds of children who died in pandemics have been laid to rest in Moncton’s Elmwood Cemetery.

“There were several hundred people, infants and so on, buried here and it happened during the Russian, Asian, Spanish flu,” says Jim Rogers, the Elmwood Cemetery lot chairman.

The new angel statue, which was erected last week, is a joint effort between the cemetery, Nelson Monuments, and the city of Moncton.

The angel sits on an elevated base, on top of a heart, watching over the nearly 400 souls.

“As it was passed down to us historically, there was wagon loads of infants that died at birth that were brought from the hospital here and because it was an epidemic, they were buried as quickly as possible,” says Rogers.

Cemetery workers recently discovered some of the old tombstone bases. The graves were all unmarked, likely because families could not afford to have them engraved. Wooden crosses that once covered the graves no longer exist.

“There was a blank section out in the cemetery and no one knew who was there. So I had started doing research on the old records that we had,” says Sarah Hope, a researcher with Elmwood Cemetery.

Hope was able to find some of the names of the influenza victims.

“On the list, it mostly says the names. It says the date they were buried and the section number which they were buried. Some of them say if they were children,” says Hope.

The monument had been in the works for years and it’s only coincidence that it was put up during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I think it was meant to be,” says Rogers.