- by Aly Boltman

Last night, Michael Den Tandt and I drove down to Toronto to the Architectural Conservancy of Ontario’s awards dinner, as the Potter’s Field Monument Steering Committee was nominated for the Public Education and Engagement Award.

If the project had won, it would be the fifth award for the committee for work that was never about accolades or rewards for anyone except those 1,300 people unmarked and nearly forgotten in the tiny patch of land at Greenwood Cemetery, some for more than 160 years.

It was a long shot, so much so that when I wrote some notes out in the car on the way down to TO and couldn’t read my own terrible handwriting, I thought “it’s not going to matter – I won’t be needing these.”

The project was up against some seriously incredible competition, including Graeme Bachiu’s six-part Canfield Roots documentary series and related public advocacy work to have the landlocked, privately owned and inaccessible historic Canfield Black cemetery restored and recognized. Volunteers have been working on this cemetery project for close to 30 years.

Amazingly, of the four projects nominated from across the province, two of them have ties to Owen Sound, as the talented Graeme Bachiu was born and raised here. It must be something in the water. We stood together last night at the ceremony, hugging each other and cheering each other on.

When they called out the Potter’s Field Steering Committee’s name as the winner, I had a true moment of panic and a total lapse in confidence because I never thought I’d need those notes and I was sure I’d never be able read them. So I didn’t.

I spoke from the heart and off the cuff for six minutes about the honour of receiving this award, about the people who contributed to this project – and there are so many I will never capture them all here – but Terri Baird-Jackson in particular who nominated the committee for the award and whose article Greenwood Cemetery – Land of the Living first informed me about Potter’s Field. Terri came to every city deputation, and along with the new Grey County Black Heritage Society, nominated the committee for almost all of the other awards won among so many other things.

Like John and Shirley Reaburn, the donors, the readers of a billion emails, the jam to my peanut butter, the duo with the patience of saints and generosity to match.

The City of Owen Sound, Grey Roots, Owen Sound’s historic Black community including Blaine Courtney, Dorothy Abbott, Tony Kenneth Miller, Bonita Johnson De Matteis (and her design for the windows at the Black History Cairn that we incorporated into the monument), Sanderson Monuments and the long-suffering Steve Peyton who dealt with more than 30 design changes, and so many others. Michael McLuhan and Luke Den Tandt for their brilliant photography.

Naomi Norquay for her amazing complementary work unearthing the histories of those buried at Potter’s Field, a narrative project being launched this Saturday at 2:00 p.m. at Grey Roots.

Friends and family who have contributed and supported this work like Anne Finlay-Stewart, Aimee Sturley, Philly Markowitz and Michael. Janie Cooper, thank you for bringing this work to the attention of the Ontario Historical Society.

I wish I could mention everyone who had a small hand in this community effort, including the nearly 200 people from all over North America who took our survey and contributed their thoughts to the design work.

It has been a wild ride, and the way this monument has truly resonated with people has been awe-inspiring.

The best part of it all, though, is that every time someone talks about Potter’s Field, visits, shines a light on it, all of those people who didn’t get the dignity they deserved for generations are now being honoured and remembered. Their stories are worth telling.

If you haven’t been to Greenwood Cemetery to see the monument, it is so beautiful there right now at the peak of fall. Now is the time to go.

And with any luck by the spring, there will be a secondary plaque beside the monument directing people to Grey Roots’ website to the Potter’s Field Narratives to bring many of its inhabitants back into the land of the living.