Traditional Burials, Entombments and Cremations

Lawyer in Commercial Law, he was Dean of Law at McGill University for 25 years. He was also a Senator, Mayor of Montreal and Prime Minister of Canada from 1891 to1892. Sir John Abbott was the lawyer of large companies involved in banking, transportation and communications. He was appointed to the Senate in 1887, the same year that he became mayor of Montreal, where he served for two years. In 1891, following the death of Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald, Abbott succeeded. Seventeen months later, he was forced to resign for health reasons. John Abbott College in Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue was named in his honour in 1972.

A prolific writer, he was Mayor of Montreal from 1885 to 1887. The name is familiar to Montrealers, as the last station on the Metro’s green line bears his name. Honoré Beaugrand was a free-thinker with avant-garde ideas, who defended his views in newspaper articles and short stories. He founded the newspaper La Patrie in 1879 and published several novels. He was mayor of Montreal during turbulent times. The year 1885 was marked by a severe smallpox epidemic and public vaccination was the subject of raucous debates. Ten mayors of Montreal are buried in Mount Royal Cemetery. Beaugrand died in 1906 and was among the first people cremated at Mount Royal Cemetery.

Winner of 11 Stanley Cups, he was a hockey player and coach of the Montreal Canadiens. He began his professional career with a Montreal Maroons and won his first Stanley Cup with them in 1935. He joined Montreal Canadiens in 1936 and won two more Stanley Cups In 1944 and 1946. When he injured his ankle during a game in 1948, Blake gave up his playing career. In 1955, he replaced his former coach Dick Irvin, and as the new coach of the Canadiens, won 8 Stanley Cups in 13 years. Stanley Cups In 13 years. Toe Blake’s team comprised such outstanding players as goaltender Jacques Plante, defence man Doug Harvey and forwards Dickie Moore, Maurice Richard and Jean Béliveau.

Painter and stained-glass artist, she was a member of “Les Automatistes”, a movement started by Paul-Emile Borduas which encouraged artists to create intuitively. With other artists, she signed a manifesto called the "Refus global," published in 1948 which rejected the norms and values of the time. Like many other artists, she moved to France shortly after. When she returned to Quebec as a renowned artist in the 1960s, she was commissioned to do the large mural at the Champ-de-Mars metro. In 1983, Ferron was the first woman to receive the Paul-Emile Borduas Award from the Quebec Government for her body of work.

The real "Anna" who inspired the renowned musical and film "The King and I". She was governess to the children of the King of Siam in Bangkok from 1862 to 1867. She then moved to the United States where she published two books: “The English Governess at the Siamese Court” and “The Romance of the Harem”. At a later date, she moved to Halifax to live with her daughter and her son-in-law, whom she followed when the family moved to Montreal where she lived for 15 years. While in Canada, she volunteered her services to various charities and supervised the education of her grandchildren. In 1944, the American author Margaret Landon read Anna’s books and rewrote her story which inspired the musical on Broadway in 1951 and the movie with Yul Brynner 1956. Another movie called “Anna and the King” was made in 1999 starring Jodie Foster.

Owner of a large manufacturing company Macdonald Tobacco, Sir William was a great philanthropist. He paid all the costs associated with the construction of the first crematorium in Canada, built at the Mount Royal Cemetery in 1901. He promised the Trustees of Mount Royal Cemetery to cover all the costs of operations by means of an endowment fund. Sole owner of a highly profitable tobacco company, bachelor Sir William Macdonald disapproved of smoking and redistributed the profits of his industry to good causes in the community, principally education. Heavily involved in the expansion of McGill University in the 1890s, his generosity made possible the Physics, Chemistry and Engineering buildings on campus; and, in 1907, the foundation of Macdonald College at Ste-Anne de Bellevue.

He was a hockey player of great talent who played many seasons with the Montreal Canadiens. He was a superstar who filled arenas with his speed and dazzling play. During his 12 seasons with the Canadiens, he won the Stanley Cup three times, in 1924, 1930 and 1931. He also won the Hart Trophy three times, as the most valuable player, in 1928, 1931 and 1932. During game against the Chicago Blackhawks in January 1937, he broke his leg, spent several weeks in the hospital and died on March 8th. An impressive service was held at the Forum, filled to capacity with supporters. He was displayed at center ice, surrounded by players from all teams. More than 25,000 people went to the Montreal Forum on the day of his funeral. His number seven was the first to be retired by the team in 1937.

She transformed her summer property located in Grand-Métis into a beautiful garden where rare blue poppies grow. The Refore Gardens are open to the public. Elsie was married to Robert Wilson Reford whose family had been active in the shipping and import trade since 1866. Her father, Robert Meighen, possessed a large flour mill company which produced the popular Five Roses Flour and her uncle, George Stephen who later became Lord Mount Stephen, was co-owner of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company. In 1918, her uncle gave her his fishing camp located on the Métis River, a beautiful site of several acres. Elsie Reford transformed the property into a world-class garden and built an imposing villa. Also known as Les Jardins de Métis, it has been a National Historic Site since 1996 and attracts thousands of visitors each year.

Contemporary writer, he was a prolific novelist, journalist and polemicist. Novelist Mordecai Richler is remembered for his vivid descriptions of how life was lived in a very special neighbourhood in Montreal. His best-known works are The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, Barney’s Version and the Jacob Two-Two children’s stories. Having grown upon St. Urbain Street, in the heart of what was then a predominantly Jewish district, the site of the Richler grave is particularly well chosen because of its magnificent view on the East End of Montreal with Mordecai’s famed neighbourhood in the distance.

Governor-in-chief of the Hudson’s Bay Company after its merger with the NorthWest Company, Simpson had full control of the fur trade in British North America for 40 years. From 1821 to 1860, the Hudson’s Bay Company exercised a virtual monopoly over this vast territory of the British crown. Simpson was constantly travelling across the continent, ending his career at Hudson’s Bay headquarters in Lachine, near Montreal. After Sir George Simpson’s death in 1860, there was a rapid decline in the fur trade caused by Confederation and the development of Western Canada. To serve the new settlers, the Hudson Bay trading posts were converted into general stores – the forerunners of the modern department stores with the same name.

He was a landscape architect who designed the Montreal Botanical Garden and worked there from 1936 until his retirement in 1962. Of German origin, Henry Teuscher did extensive studies in landscape architecture in his own country before immigrating to the United States, in 1922, to work at the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University. He and Brother Marie-Victorin from Montreal became good friends. A four-year correspondence resulted in plans for the Montreal Botanical Garden, drawn up by Mr. Teuscher. In 1936, the Garden was officially established and he became superintendent and chief horticulturist. Teuscher worked tirelessly until his retirement at the age of 71. During his career, he published numerous scientific articles, most of them dealing with orchids.

He was a famous plant collector from the early 1900s who introduced hundreds of Asian plants to the Western world. Originally from Britain, Ernest Wilson’s work as a plant collector took him to remote parts of China and Japan to find plant species typical of these regions. These redistributed to English and North American botanists in the form of seeds, bulbs, cuttings and plants. He made four expeditions to China from 1899 to 1911. In 1927, he became keeper of the famous Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University. Three years later, he and his wife died in a car accident in Massachusetts. At the bottom of his monument is a quotation from a renowned botanical magazine of the time: “Whose ardour as an explorer and judgment as a collector added to our gardens many Eastern Asiatic plants”.