Headstone at Brandon cemetery for woman who died at Ninette Sanatorium 58 years ago brings closure for family

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 29/07/2017 (3192 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It took almost 60 years, but the grave of Madeleine North is finally marked.

Her family’s long-sought sense of closure was established at the Brandon Municipal Cemetery on Friday afternoon, where several loved ones held a ceremony to mark the occasion.

Son Gilbert North, now 75, was in his late teens when his mother died at the Ninette Sanatorium on May 1, 1959, sending him into a depression that left him bedridden for several days.

What made matters worse for the teenager was the mystery that surrounded his 33-year-old mother’s death.

After she was diagnosed with tuberculosis, Madeleine North’s family was initially told that she was being sent from her home in Cross Lake to the Clearwater Lake Sanatorium in The Pas for treatment, but for some reason she ended up at Ninette.

After she died, the family was not told where her body was laid to rest.

A family member wrote a public Facebook post about the long-standing mystery a couple of years ago, which linked them up with then-stranger Alana Langevin, who took it upon herself to do some sleuthing.

After searching a different spelling of “Madeleine” than the family had been using, she located her plot at the Brandon cemetery, where she’d been interred in an unmarked grave.

Several family members gathered at this unmarked grave for a ceremony on Mother’s Day, attracting media attention that linked Provincial Granite co-owner Jeff Campbell with the story.

Campbell, in turn, donated a headstone for the family to mark the location.

The headstone was installed on Tuesday, and 25 family members drove from Cross Lake on Thursday to take part in a ceremony on Friday afternoon.

One notable absence from Friday’s ceremony was Theresa Beardy, Madeleine’s daughter, who died approximately two years ago.

Beardy’s daughters, Ella North and Ann Ross, attended the day’s ceremony not only for themselves, but also for their mother, whose dying wish had been to visit the gravesite.

The long-awaited gravesite visit was also important for Gilbert, who lifted himself out of his wheelchair to place flowers on top of his mother’s grave during Friday’s ceremony.

Ella said she was surprised and delighted to see Gilbert join the family in their overnight drive from Cross Lake to participate in the ceremony, adding that health concerns had made his participation uncertain.

Beaming with positivity following Friday’s ceremony, Gilbert said his life from that day forward would be different.

“I feel different, now,” he said with a warm smile.

Back in 1959, news of his mother’s death hit Gilbert hard, sending him into a downward spiral that included dark days.

It was later relayed to him that a couple of days before Madeleine’s death, she had begged the Lord’s forgiveness and said, “You tell Gilbert he’s got a future.”

This put him on the road to Christianity, which he said helped improve his life.

Money was tight when he was growing up, but Gilbert said his mother still managed to pinch enough pennies to buy him a leather jacket when he was 14, which he owns to this day.

“I knew she loved me,” he said.

While Friday’s ceremony capped one family mystery, another remains unresolved.

Ella said they’d recently come to learn that Madeleine gave birth to a baby girl at the Ninette Sanatorium a few days before she died.

Although the infant’s birth name was Edna North, they suspect that it changed after she entered the government system.

The family believes she is still alive and Ella said they hope to track her down.

» tclarke@brandonsun.com

» Twitter: @TylerClarkeMB