St. Joseph's Cemetery (Foremost, Forty Mile County)

EAST OF SECONDARY HIGHWAY 879 APPROXIMATELY .5 MILES NORTH OF TOWNSHIP ROAD 72 AND WEST OF RANGE ROAD #112

WALK THROUGH A FARMER’S FIELD – NO VEHICULAR ACCESS – ALONG THE ROAD ALLOWANCE FOR RANGE ROAD #113

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Cemetery records include burials from 1916 to 1944 although Anna Marie Luca (1924-1994) ashes were interred long after these dates.

There are 2 Luca family “memorial” markers plus 30 graves for which the name of the deceased is known for only 14 of the specific sites. Since there are only 25 names listed on the memorial cairn there are at least 3 graves for which there was no record of the burial. (A burial record for baby – Elizabeth Gaetz – was discovered subsequent to the cairn installation)

Eighteen graves are marked with a white iron cross. Although the exact location of each grave is known and the names of the deceased are also known for most of the burials, the name of the occupant of each plot is not known.

The remains of George Wolfe (8 June 1925) and his son, Andrew Wolfe (Oct 1933) were disinterred and relocated to a cemetery in Medicine Hat, Alberta in the mid 1950s.
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The Roman Catholic Church
Between the Forty Mile and Etzikom Coulees authored by Kelly Mitchell in 2003

In Lethbridge, on Saturday, January 8, 1910, among the hundreds of men who queued-up awaiting the opportunity to file on land which was to be opened for homesteading on January 10, were a number of German-speaking Catholics who had been born in the general vicinty of Odessa and Crima in the Russian Empire, where their forefathers had settled perhaps a hundred years earlier.

The faith of these people was an integral part of their lives. Those who settled north of the present village of Foremost at first took their infants, usually less than a month old, as far as Bow Island to be baptized by Father F. X. Erne, a member of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, who worked out of Medicine Hat, or by Father Konrad Meyer, of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, based in Lethbridge. But, in days of the horse and wagon, it was important that there be a church in the immediate neighborhood. So, in March 1912, when Matthias Thomas acquired the NE1/4 of Section 16-7-11, he did not include in his purchase from the Crown that quarter’s south-eastern five acres, for it had been decided that this would be used for the church and cemetery.

At the beginning of 1913, Father Joseph Reibel, also based in Medicine Hat, began to serve the area, and in the course of that year St. Joseph’s Church was built. “It was a great deal too small from the beginning to give accommodation to all and most of the men had to stay outside, at the door and windows during services.” Among the founding parishioners were the families of Joseph Bernhardt, John Degenstein Sr, Rudolph Fix, George Gaetz, John German, Anton Hagel, Stanley Hofforth, John J. Kimmitt, Nicholas Leismeister, Theophile Luca, Bernard Roth, Alex Schatz, Andrew Schile, John Schwartzenberger, Matthias Thomas and Frank Unser.

The Sacred Heart Missionaries returned to France at the end of 1916, and the Reverend Edmund J. McCoy, just ordained, took over many of the missions. About two years later, he changed his address from Medicine Hat to Bow Island, which was somewhat centrally located in the territory over which he ranged. Assisted by Father Thomas Greene, he served, among many other areas, St. Joseph’s, Nemiscan, Granlea, and Etzikom, with the occasional foray further ot the south and east, until late 1921, after which these districts were cared for by the priests who looked after Foremost.

Courtesy of Medicine Hat and District Genealogical Society (MHDGS)