This Labrador family lost their grandfather to tuberculosis. A new program helped find his unmarked grave

MauriceJacque has finally met his grandfather more than 70 years after he died.

The Postville, N.L., man, along with his cousin, Brian Jacque, travelled to St. Anthony last month to pay his respects throughNanilavut, a project that's helpingfamily members find the grave sites of loved ones who left their communities for tuberculosis treatments and never returned.

It's the first family trip through the Nunatsiavut government program.

"It was a good experience to be out there where your grandfather died once upon a time," Jacque said.

Jacque never had the opportunity to meet his late relative, who died in December 1949. Jacque said he was told his grandfather left Labrador for tuberculosis treatment in St. Anthony and died while there.

"We did not know much about where exactly he died or where he was, what graveyard he was put into," Jacque said."It seems a little better [now] that we know that he was there, where he was."

Jacque read a prayer, played a hymn and placed flowers in the cemetery to pay his respects.

Despite the information that he's learned, Jacque still has questions. The death certificate for his grandfather says he died from general tuberculosis and Pott diseasetuberculosis of the spine but it's what happened after his death that Jacque wonders about.

"Was he given a proper funeral or was he just put down there, a little something said and that was it? Why wasn't he sent back to Labrador? Another question was, why wasn't the grave site marked?" said Jacque.

Jacque isn't sure if those questions will ever be answered.

A trip to remember

This trip to St. Anthony was meaningful for not just the family, but also for Cathy Ford, who's helping lead the program.

"I'm very pleased and I can't stop smiling,"Ford said.

Her first meeting with the family happened in January 2020.Nearly two years later,they travelled together to St. Anthony.

In order to try to track down where loved ones are buried, Ford has had to search through church books andwebsites and work with the Department of Vital Statistics.

"[It's] like looking for a needle in a haystack. It's actually quite difficult because my research is ongoing. I found some loved ones and [there are] still some loved ones I'm still searching for," said Ford.

For many families who had relatives leave Nunatsiavut for tuberculosis treatments and never return, information wasn't sharedabout what had happened to them. For Ford, that lack of information is one of the reasons why being able to go on these family trips is so important, to allow families tosay those final goodbyes.

"I get emotional thinking about it," she said."I know we can't bring our loved ones home, but I hope the families are feeling some kind of peace."

Ford saysshe plans to return to the cemetery in St. Anthony to leave some kind of marker to remember those who are buried there.

"That's my priority and something I want to do, so that nobody's forgotten," she said.

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