Empty Elmwood Cemetery plots part of century-old mystery

Local history etched in tombstones Jon Hendricks takes a walk through history among the tombstones at Historic Elmwood Cemetery.

Tens of thousands of people have been laid to rest at the Elmwood Cemetery. Those who work in the cemetery know a lot of details about each and every person buried there.

But one plot has a big mystery associated with it. It's empty, and no one knows where the family who owns it has gone.

In 1908, a wealthy lumber executive named David Henry Telford purchased 20 plots in the Elmwood Cemetery.

However, he only used one of them for his niece, and only briefly.

"I think she was in town for a wedding, got very ill and died," said Jim Baker, executive director of the Elmwood Cemetery.

"And then 6 months later, she was moved to California, which I suspect is where she was from."

After that, like a departed spirit, Telford was gone and never to be seen again.

Baker believes he may have moved to what is now a ghost town in southern British Columbia.

What happened after that, however, is a mystery.

"I've tried to trace the Telford family," said Baker. "We would really like them to use it, or we'll find an alternate use for it ourselves."

Since Baker can't find Telford's family, he's hoping they will find him, and solve a mystery more than 100 years in the making.