A woman war reporter, a spy and a Titanic-era lover: here are the 'human' stories behind Hamilton gravestones

The Hamilton Cemetery is the oldest municipal cemetery in Canada, opening in 1847 and transferred to the City of Hamilton in 1892.

Pat Gallagher, a retired Stelco worker and volunteer historical interpreter, has been researching the people buried at the cemetery for years and has been leading free guided tours of it with his daughter, Alycia Gallagher, since 2020, called the Cemetery Chronicles.

“I've always liked history,” he said.

Gallagher said the work also helps him stay connected with the memory of his wife, Cathy Gallagher, who died in 2017.

“My wife and I were extremely close. We're high school sweethearts. We were together for 44 years. We were madly in love and I lost her,” he said.

“This has been therapeutic to me because I do run into people here who are grieving as well. I can talk to them about my own personal stuff and [that] helps.”

The pair shared their love for history, which they impressed on their daughter. Now, the duo run their tours year round.

In late December, Gallagher spoke with CBC Hamilton about some of the prevalent and interesting people buried at the Hamilton Cemetery.

Part of Gallagher and Alycia’s work involves being curious about the names on the headstones at the cemetery.

Kathleen “Kit” Coleman, one of the first female war correspondents, died in Hamilton in 1915. She has a cross-shaped headstone and is buried with her third husband at the Hamilton Cemetery.

Coleman was born in Ireland in 1856. She moved to Canada in 1884 after her first husband, an elderly man who she was married off to, died. She married a second time to a man who “turned out to be an abusive drunk,” according to Alycia, who leads a tour highlighting women buried at the cemetery, and later left him. Coleman eventually married a third time.

In the late 1880s, she started writing and became a columnist for the Daily Mail, writing about women’s issues like low wages, spousal abuse and working conditions, said Alycia.

“[Coleman] wanted to make it in a man's world of journalism,” she said. 

“She actually covered Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee, and closely followed and wrote about what's known as the Whitechapel murders, also known as Jack the Ripper.”