Montreal man says grandfather's grave marker missing from cemetery

A Montreal man is wondering what happened to his grandfather's grave marker. It used to be in the Notre-Dame-des-Neiges Cemetery, but now, he says, it’s nowhere to be found.

“I was like, ‘this is weird, there's nothing here,’” Andre Drouin told CTV News. “I went up and down 15 times just to make sure I wasn't going loco.”

There are more than 6,500 gravestones within the cemetery grounds, and Drouin says he only learned one appeared to be missing when he recently visited the site. The last time he was there was in 2015.

“I came back and there’s nothing there,” he said.

According to the cemetery website, his grandfather, Clement Drouin, is buried at plot R00867 – a relatively central spot located towards the cemetery’s northeast section.

He was buried in that plot in 1965, and the tombstone next to Clement’s spot is still there.

Reached by telephone, the cemetery told CTV that it’s only responsible for the maintenance of the grounds and burials. As for the stones themselves, it said, they’re up to the family to care for.

With the yearly freeze and thaw, the cemetery suggested, it’s possible the stone sank underground. Drouin says he tried to dig for it, but couldn’t find anything.

Drouin never met his grandfather, and says the gravesite is one of his few remaining connections to that generation of his family.

“My dad just passed away in 2019 and I was planning on having him interred here … buried with his dad,” said Drouin.

“Now, I don't know where the heck he is anymore,” he said, adding he can’t afford a replacement marker.