A few years ago, my husband’s son was learning to drive and he wanted to practise with dad on an upcoming visit to Stratford.

“Where should I take him?” Chris asked.

“The cemetery,” said I.

He looked at me like I had suddenly sprouted a horn from my forehead. “Ask anyone who grew up here,” I said. Indeed, a few inquiries with cousins and neighbours confirmed: Cemetery it was.

Stratford has one giant-sized cemetery, with the only other burial grounds an ashes-scattering-only space on the property of St. James Anglican Church, now known as Holy Trinity. The Avondale Cemetery covers around 68 acres, with more than 33,200 internments: that’s more than the current official living population of Stratford.

If you grew up here, or your relatives did, you have family bones or ashes in this place.

Pictured here is a gravestone from 1929 in the old part of the cemetery’s “I” section: “I” for infant. This marks the resting place for Alexander Moorehead, who died the day he was born. He is one of seven sons born to Dorothy and William James Moorehead (my husband Chris’s grandparents), who are also buried in this cemetery, albeit quite a hike away in the newer sections of the burial grounds that are numbered, not lettered: They are in Section 18, having died in 1969 and 1976 respectively.

You forget how big this place is if you only see it driving by the main entrance off John Street in Stratford. It seems to go on forever, section after section, with many narrow roadways – hence the local custom of sending young drivers in here to get their first experience behind the wheel of a car.

According to the city’s website, the cemetery opened in 1871 and in 1883, the Roman Catholic church opened a portion west of the original property with sections named after saints. Both areas now, and all the expansion beyond, are municipally owned and operated.

The most famous memorial in the cemetery is one of its smallest: In section 23C, there is a flush-with-the-ground plaque commemorating Richard Manuel, best known as a pianist and one of three lead singers for The Band, for which he was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994. Much less grand, in 2004 Manuel also was one of the first recipients of a Stratford Bronze Star – plaques imbedded into sidewalks around the city honouring notable citizens.

I didn’t grow up in Stratford, and didn’t know much of Manuel’s story until I started keeping company with someone who is a giant The Band fan. (Love means saying, “sure, OK!” when someone suggests watching a DVD of the documentary The Last Waltz, Martin Scorsese’s take on what was supposedly The Band’s final concert in November 1976). Come April 3 – Manuel’s birthday – each year Stratford’s facebook groups are filled with memories and anecdotes from those who knew him, or admired him, in his early days.

He was an incredible talent, starting with a local Stratford band named the Rebels and later known as the Revols, being spotted as a genius-level musician by Ronnie Hawkins, and being recruited into Hawkins’ backing band, The Hawks, when Manuel was only 18 years old. Members of that group eventually left Hawkins’ employ. They became Bob Dylan’s backing band and evolved into The Band in 1968 with the release of their iconic album, Music from the Big Pink.

Manuel’s story is a sad one – addiction and depression were twin demons that led to his death by suicide in 1986 while on tour with The Band, a reduced version of it after Robbie Robertson had gone on to a solo career. Manuel’s grave plaque is starkly simple: his name, years of life, and an etched image of piano keys.

The local tourism office, Destination Stratford, has created an audio tour called Epitaphs & Headstones that highlights local luminaries at Avondale and other cemeteries in Perth County. Manuel is featured, of course, along with several politicians, a couple of war heroes, and a trio from Stratford Festival fame: founder Tom Patterson; long-time artistic director Richard Monette; and actor William Hutt.

Families visiting gravesites, dog walkers, exercise strollers, the occasional celebrity-seeker, and those new drivers: all find their paths amid the Stratfordites who came before them.

Photos: Kelley Teahen