Created on property purchased from Dr.Pierre Beaubien, the new cemetery was a response to growing demand at a time when the old Saint-Antoine Cemetery (near present-dayDorchester Square) had become too small to serve Montreal's rapidly increasing population.[5] Founded in 1854 as agarden cemetery in the French style, it was designed by landscape architect Henri-Maurice Perreault, who studied rural cemeteries in Boston and New York.[6] On May 29, 1855, thirty-five-year-old Jane Gilroy McCready, wife of Thomas McCready, then a Montreal municipal councillor, was the first person to be buried in the new cemetery.[7]
Notre Dame des Neiges is the largest cemetery in Canada with more than 55 kilometres of lanes and one million people interred.[8] The Notre Dame des Neiges Cemetery site has more than 65,000 monuments and 71 family vaults.[2]
The cemetery originally served Roman Catholics and rural French Canadians. Italian, Portuguese, Japanese, Orthodox Greek, Polish, Ukrainian and Huron are also represented, indicated in many instances by ethnic motifs on gravestones.[6] The cemetery is adjacent to theMount Royal Cemetery, a predominantly English-speaking and originallyProtestant adjacent burial ground, theShaar Hashomayim Cemetery, anAshkenazi Jewish burial ground and Temple Emanu-El Cemetery, aReformed Jewish burial ground. These four abutting cemeteries on the slopes ofMount Royal contain a total of 1.5 million burials.
Noburials orcremations took place between May 16, 2007, and September 11, 2007, because of a labour strike. The interments of more than 300 bodies were affected.[9] In addition, its uncut, unkempt grass became a symbol of the labour dispute.
Due to its vast size, locating a specific grave can be difficult. As a result, the cemetery now offers a computerized mapping service that allows visitors to quickly and accurately locate graves. It can be accessed at the cemetery using a touch screen display or via the Internet.[8]
The only opening in the fence between the Notre Dame des Neiges andMount Royal cemeteries is where two adjoining military sections are. Shortly afterWorld War I, to emphasize the comradeship and uniformity of sacrifice of Protestant and Catholic soldiers, theImperial War Graves Commission insisted on an open passage between the two plots and theCross of Sacrifice was erected.[10] There are 445 identified Commonwealth service war grave burials commemorated here, 252 from World War I and 215 from World War II.[11] Those whose graves could not be individually marked are named on bronze plaques attached to the Cross of Sacrifice. The Quebec Memorial on theNational Field of Honour atPointe-Claire lists 24 servicemen buried here, whose graves could no longer be marked or maintained, as alternative commemorations.
Everymausoleum in Notre Dame des Neiges Cemetery contains multiplecrypts, clearly identified, as well ascolumbaria with glass or marbleniches for one or moreurns. The first mausoleum, Notre Dame, dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, was built in 1978. The others were added gradually in the years that followed: John-Paul II (1980), Saint-Francis (1982), Marguerite-Bourgeoys (1983), The Pietà (1985), Saints Peter and Paul (1989), Sainte Clare of Assisi (1994), the two-storey Saint Marguerite d'Youville (1996) and most recently, Esther-Blondin (2007).[12]
Opened in November 2007, the Esther Blondin Mausoleum, named after the founder of the Sisters ofSaint Anne, houses 6,000 burial crypts and niches.
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