The Titanic and Fairview Lawn Cemetery in Halifax

 

The sinking of the Titanic [1] in 1912 still fascinates us today. We drove to the cemetery where, among others, victims of the Titanic are buried who were recovered but initially could not be identified. Those who were identified were mostly poor people whose burials in Great Britain no one could afford (transportation costs). The name is Fairview Lawn Cemetery. We could see the Jewish section from the outside on the way there, but it was too far away for us to visit. Maya, the local guide, told stories about some of the Titanic victims. "J. Dawn" was not the Jack Dawn from the movie Titanic, which I own but still haven't seen. There were still devotional objects there, but it was particularly bad after the film came out. Ultimately, however, tourism in Halifax benefits from the film about the fate of the Titanic and some of its passengers, because only since then there has been an increased interest in this cemetery. J. Dawn was Joseph Dawn, and he was a stoker on the Titanic. The grave of a child was now particularly adorned with offerings. The child's identity was determined about 20 years ago using DNA from other relatives, decades after the disaster. The gravestones are arranged like a ship's hull.
Celine Dion and her song My Heart Will Go On [3] -: I think I heard the story of how the song has been recorded. The tremor in her voice is said to be due to excessive coffee consumption. But I think that's completely irrelevant to the result.

But the other parts of the cemetery, which have nothing to do with the Titanic, are also interesting, such as the Chinese graves. I read Fong (方); the same reason as with Wong (王), because with an American pronunciation, the "a" would sound like an "ä".
The victims of the explosion disaster of December 6, 1917 (Halifax Explosion – there's a very detailed Wikipedia article [4]) were also commemorated; it was a naval ship that had exploded, and there was a shockwave that had seismic effects even 300 km away (Sydney), as well as a tsunami [5]. The force of the explosion was calculated to be 1/7 of that of the Hiroshima bomb of 1945 and was the largest human-made explosion until 1945. “Yet another cruel blow was to come the next day when a blizzard blanketed the area, hampering relief efforts as snow covered the dead and dying.” [6]
Then, in this area of the cemetery, another gravestone deeply moved me: "Mother" was inscribed on a very small gravestone, of which only a semicircle protruded from the earth.

Links and Annotations:
[1] “RMS Titanic was a British ocean liner that sank in the early hours of 15 April 1912 as a result of striking an iceberg on her maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York City, United States. Of the estimated 2,224 passengers and crew aboard, approximately 1,500 died (estimates vary), making the incident one of the deadliest peacetime sinkings of a single ship.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanic
[2] “Titanic is a 1997 American epic romantic disaster film written and directed by James Cameron. ... The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet as members of different social classes who fall in love during the ship's maiden voyage.” 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanic_(1997_film)
[3] Céline Dion - My Heart Will Go On
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bFHsd3o1w0
[4] “On the morning of December 6, 1917, the French cargo ship SS Mont-Blanc collided with the Norwegian vessel SS Imo in the harbor of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Mont-Blanc, laden with high explosives, caught fire and detonated, devastating the Richmond district of Halifax. At least 1,782 people, largely in Halifax and Dartmouth, were killed by the blast, debris, fires, or collapsed buildings, and an estimated 9,000 others were injured.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halifax_Explosion
[5] A very detailed article with a narrated text can be found here:
https://canadaehx.com/2021/11/27/the-halifax-explosion/
[6] https://blog.library.si.edu/blog/2017/11/30/great-halifax-explosion/

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