Concert for Glenwood

Full house at the Regent for fundraising event

Lenni Stewart let out a whoop of joy when she was told that, with just minutes to go before show time, there was a lineup of people waiting to get into the Regent Theatre for the Glenwood Cemetery fundraising concert on Sunday afternoon. In fact, the start time was delayed by five minutes in order to find seats for everyone in the filled-to-capacity theatre. Stewart and her husband, Sid Wells, were the driving force behind this concert, which they arranged shortly after learning about the extensive vandalism at Glenwood Cemetery on June 20, in which 175 gravestones and monuments were damaged. Two youths were recently arrested in connection with the vandalism.

Astrid Young (R) plays guitar and sings while Ray Farrugia plays the cajón during the Glenwood Live! fundraiser at the Regent Theatre on Sunday afternoon.

For Stewart, the desecration in the cemetery touched a nerve. As a high school student at PECI, she would often go to the cemetery after school to do her homework. “It’s a very peaceful place; we have ancestors buried there,” she says. “When somebody hurts something that means so much to so many people, especially a place of peace and final rest and love, it really hurts to the core, and the County has always had a tradition of rallying together when there’s something that’s needed help.” She and Wells decided to put on a fundraising concert to help pay for the repair of the damaged headstones. Stewart is strongly connected to the music scene in the County and she received an enthusiastic response. “There were so many people that we had to say, ‘Okay, this is going to be for the next one,’ because nobody can sit here [in the Regent] for 24 hours. It’s been a phenomenal response, not only from the established County folks, but also people that have really loved where they lived, and it’s been a real community thing to get this going.”

It was a complete team effort to stage the concert. Wells took care of getting the Regent booked and seeking out sponsors. Volunteers at the Glenwood Cemetery Foundation obtained silent auction items, and in addition to getting the musicians, Stewart also created the graphics and the event poster. Thirty musicians volunteered their time for the show. They included the Reasons, Astrid Young and Ray Farrugia, Little Bluff, Celine Papizewska and Rita DiGhent, among others—and not forgetting Stewart herself. Rick Zimmerman was the master of ceremonies, and he played auctioneer for a signed poster, cajoling a high bid of $300. Caleb Hutton took on the essential role of managing the sound—making a number of on-the-fly connections for guitars or microphones—and he also took to the stage for a couple of tunes. The concert lasted over three hours, including a 20-minute intermission during which attendees were encouraged to bid on the silent auction items—which raised an additional $875.

Cemetery Foundation, was grateful for the overwhelming community response. “This really gives us the strength to go on and do the restoration and rebuilding, knowing that the community is behind us,” she says. “The support to come out and get this fundraising campaign off to such a great start, it’s been wonderful.” The Foundation has catalogued all the damage, and will meet with representatives from several monument companies in August to work on a plan to repair the damage to the headstones. So far, only one of the headstones has been deemed beyond repair, with a replacement cost of $12,000. One item of good news is that the Ruth Guest angel, made of Carrera marble, can be repaired and further, the monument company will do it at no charge. The angel marked the final resting place of six-yearold Ruth, who died in 1927 after being struck by a car.

The project to repair the damage will be a long one. “This is going to take more than two years because it is so massive,” says Latchford. “The monument companies are already busy, and to work this into their schedule is going to take some time. And the work year you can do it in is short. You can’t do it in the winter.”

For more information, please visit glenwoodcemetery.ca.