My Gravedigging Aunt

George Macey’s great aunt Eyleen Smith was Canada’s only female gravedigger. She also dug outhouse pits. When George’s family was living at 28 Shaftesbury Ave. during World War II, Aunt Eyleen joined them and, according to family lore, when the drain failed in the house, she happily dug the hole and built an outhouse in the backyard. (In the 1940s, many houses in Toronto still had outdoor plumbing.) A diminutive 5-foot-1 and weighting just 103 lbs., she was a skilled jill-of-all-trades and managed to support herself after the untimely death of her husband two years after they married. Much of what George knows about his remarkable aunt comes from three Toronto Star articles in the 1950s and ’60s. Back Lane Studios’ Mapping our Memories project has been made possible by partial support from the Government of Canada’s New Horizons for Seniors Program (NHSP).