It was a Wednesday in July of 1918 when 28-year-old William Joseph Phillips boarded a steam train near Revelstoke for his regular shift as a locomotive fireman. Everything appeared to be flowing smoothly as the day began, but, unbeknownst to the young husband and father, something was in fact wrong.
The glass engine gauges, which were reading as normal, weren't picking up on a water shortage in the boiler. Whether Phillips became aware of the issue at some point or not isn't known, but if he did, it was too late.
With no water left to convert to steam, the boiler rapidly overheated and exploded. The blast launched the locomotive 30 metres west into a roadbed, according to a Revelstoke Review newspaper story at the time, while the cab – where Phillips was – flew 60 metres northeast into the side of a building.
Phillips's body was found flung a further 23 metres away, "wedged under the drive wheels of a locomotive on an adjacent track.”
He was declared dead that day, on July 3, 1918, and later buried in Revelstoke's cemetery.
People wandering the city's burial grounds today may not know it, but many of the headstones they pass by hold intriguing glimpses into the community's history.
Phillip, for instance, was just one of many claimed by the railway Revelstoke was built around. Another 58 railway workers were killed eight years earlier, on March 4, 1910, when an avalanche hit them while they were clearing the tracks of a previous slide at Rogers Pass. Fourteen of them were buried in Revelstoke. A further four men were killed in January of 1929 in a head-on collision and bridge collapse on back-to-back days.
“It was definitely a hazardous occupation with a lot of ways to die," Revelstoke Museum curator Cathy English told The Revelstoke Review. She's meticulously gathered details on the cemetery's history and runs tours on it regularly.
In some of its very first years, in the late 1800s, the cemetery had a specific section devoted to the Chinese community. This too speaks to Revelstoke's railway roots.
Many Chinese people settled in the mountain town after coming to Canada to help complete the Western section of the Canadian Pacific Railway. It should be noted that hundreds of Chinese people died while working on building the tracks as a result of unsafe conditions, but that those buried in Revelstoke would have passed away after the railway was finished.
English said the Chinese section of the cemetery no longer exists and that they believe it is because the community would often only bury their dead for a time before shipping their loved ones' remains back to China.
Other divisions within the cemetery have stood the test of time.
People of different faiths were originally only allowed to be buried alongside those of the same religion, and English said the Catholic and Protestant sections remain distinct today. Visitors will find the Catholic area more crowded and more heavily adorned with flowers, English said.
In the early 1900s, a couple known as William and Bertha Cowan were buried apart because of their differing faiths.
Other notable tales found in the cemetery include that of a 24-year-old Japanese woman named Jennie Kiobara, who was murdered in April 1905 while working as a prostitute on Front Street. Newspaper reports of her death described her wounds in graphic detail, saying her throat had been cut and her hands sliced up in her attempt to ward off the attack. English said Kiobara was taken from her home in Japan and forced to prostitute in Canada.
An Italian settler named Frank Julian was also found murdered. He hired a few temporary workers to help him clear some farmland in September of 1910. A search party was sent out when he never returned home, and Julian's body was discovered covered in brush near his land. He had been attacked from behind with his own axe.
There was tragedy to be found even for those who weren't killed by others.
Hector McKinnon, who was mayor from 1915 and 1929, died after he was caught in a barn fire and suffered severe wounds.
There are also dozens of people in the cemetery whose identities and stories may not be known. English said transient workers without family around would often be buried without a headstone and, for others, their loved ones simply couldn't afford one.
In other cases, headstones made of wood have eroded or vandalism has made them unreadable over the years. Despite this, English said they work hard to connect family with the grave sites of distant relatives whenever a request comes in.
In one case, English said she was able to connect with the great grandson of a railway worker named Angelo Conte who died on Oct. 15, 1915 while building the Connaught Tunnel. English said she remembers the date well because Oct. 15 was her mother's birthday. Now, she visits the grave of Conte every year on the date of his death and sends a photo to his great grandson, and the great grandson in return says his family drinks a toast to English's mother.
"It's really a neat connection that happened," English said.
Anyone interested in learning more about the cemetery's history can visit the Revelstoke Museum or attend a tour.
