U of G plot is final resting place of individuals who donated their body to science
BY ANDREW VOWLES
More than 30 years have passed since George Alexander (Alec) Russell's untimely death. Last year, his family got a chance to properly say goodbye at the refurbished U of G cemetery plot in north Guelph where he and more than 170 other individuals who donated their body to science are buried.
Now, Russell's grandson hopes others whose family members were interred at the University gravesite in Woodlawn Memorial Park will visit and find the same kind of closure. That's also the hope of faculty and staff who led a project last summer to rejuvenate the long-disused site in the cemetery.
“That's one thing we hope for other families,” says Jason Russell. “We hope they'll be able to go there. We would like this to be public knowledge.”
U of G used the Woodlawn plot between 1968 and 1982 to inter the cremated remains of bodies used in the University's long-running human anatomy course.
Today, 150 to 190 students in human kinetics and biomedical science enrol each year in that two-semester course. It's the only course of its kind outside a medical school in Canada that permits undergraduate students to do full-body dissections of human cadavers willed to science.
Since 1982, all cadavers intended for the course have come from the University of Western Ontario, and their remains have been returned to London for interment.
U of G's Woodlawn plot is a triangular island at one end of the cemetery, shaded by tall evergreens. Since 1968, a single grave marker has stood on the site, along with a series of smaller stones marking a number of pertinent years for the course.
Last summer's refurbishment of the plot resulted from some amateur sleuthing by Jason Russell, now working on his PhD in Canadian labour history at York University.
He was only two when his grandfather died at age 55. Long plagued by heart trouble, the lifelong Niagara-region resident succumbed to a fourth heart attack in 1971. His remains were interred in Woodlawn April 26, 1972.
Family members knew his body had gone to U of G, but they had lost track of what happened to it after that.
“There was a memorial service, but the whole process of grieving him was never completed properly,” says Jason. “It's been something we have wondered about over the years.”
His curiosity piqued by his history studies, he contacted the Ontario coroner's office in early 2003 and learned of the Woodlawn site.
That spring, he visited Guelph with his father, Tom, and then one-year-old son, Thomas. Standing over the spot where his grandfather's ashes had remained for more than three decades, Jason says he and his father both felt relief.
“There were quite a few tears. I could see the relief on my dad's face. There are a lot of things he wishes his father could have seen.”
Jason contacted the University in summer 2003 to ask about placing an individual memorial on the site. “The University from the start was receptive to this,” he says.
Besides the existing monument, whose inscription pays tribute to individuals who contributed to “the advancement of medical science,” a new granite marker was placed on the site with space intended for inscribed brass plaques for each individual in the plot. So far, only Alec Russell's name is on the stone, but Jason hopes that others will follow. Also installed were new stone markers to complete the missing years when individuals' remains were interred.
Last summer's project also included refurbishment of the plot itself by Prof. Maurice Nelischer, School of Environmental Design and Rural Development. He met with Prof. Terry Graham, chair of the Department of Human Biology and Nutritional Sciences, and Paul Taylor, the cemetery's general manager, to discuss the context and design for the space. Then he worked with cemetery staff to level the plot and install a 1½–foot-high stone wall and a raised bed for shade perennials, including hosta, astilbe and periwinkle.
“It was important to give the plot a solid presence and create something that would fit within the context of a beautiful cemetery,” says Nelischer, whose earlier projects have included cemetery landscaping master plans. Designing an individual plot was a new project for him. “The plot now stands out and serves as an anchor for that part of the cemetery.”
Vicki Hodgkinson, executive assistant to the president, who was involved in the original discussions with Jason Russell, experienced a bit of serendipity one day last summer when she stopped to see the completed site. A man already standing at the plot turned out to be a Russell relative.
“I felt this really wonderful sense that he was coming to see and bring closure,” says Hodgkinson. “I remember thinking: ‘You know what, we did the right thing. This man has come and found something important to him.'”
U of G's human anatomy course was begun by the late biomedical sciences professor William Boyd and is now run by faculty and staff in the Department of Human Biology and Nutritional Sciences, using lab space in the Powell Building.
Since 2001, students, faculty and staff have held an annual memorial service on campus at the conclusion of the course. This year's service will take place March 30.
