1. Visions of the Past: Bayview
Cemetery
Cemeteries are an intriguing part of any town. The various
tombstones of all shapes and sizes show us who has lived in
the town and died previous to ourselves. Can these
tombstones give us more information about our past besides
simply the names and dates of those who have gone on
before? Do they reveal important or devastating events
forgotten to present inhabitants?
2. I began by listing all of the tombstone entries, A –
G, from the Bayview Cemetery. This included over 8,000
names. It was important to get the full death dates to see if
there were any patterns around them.
3. As many tombstones only had a year of death, I
went out to gather the full death dates and reasons for death
on the individuals.
LDS
Family
History
Library
Bellingham
Public
Library
4. WW I
WW
II
Korean
War
Vietnam
War
Graphing the information, I hoped, would show
peaks of high death numbers. This would help me to see
where to focus my research. Below you see some major
wars, although the obvious was not the focus of my research.
5. Death
dates
As I gathered death dates and reasons for death, an
intriguing pattern arose. Seven men all died on the same
day? What from? What had occurred?
6. More research showed that a mining accident had
occurred on April 8, 1895 at the Blue Canyon Coal Mine
killing 23. A disaster long forgotten, this incident is one of
Washington’s worst industrial accidents in its history.
7. I was also interested in why the deaths for WW I
were so much higher than any other years. They easily
topped all of the other wars. Was something else going on or
did that large of a percentage really die from that war?
1918-
1920
8. The deaths from World
War I were significant, but
another pattern showed itself as I
discovered more reasons for
death in this year.
9. “The influenza pandemic of
1918-1919 killed more people than…WWI.
It has been cited as the most devastating
epidemic in recorded world history. More
people died of influenza in a single year
than in four years of the Black Death
Bubonic Plague. The Influenza of 1918-
1919 was a global disaster” (Billings).
10. From this small project, it does seem to be true that
by looking at the spikes in deaths over a range of years you
can find hidden events from the history of your own town or
even the world.
Works Cited:
Billings, Molly. “The Influenza Pandemic of 1918”. Stanford.edu.
Feb 2005. Web. 29 May 2013.
