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HAMILTON – There are more than 75,000 tombstones in Canada’s oldest municipal cemetery and each one has a story to tell.

But they won’t talk to just anybody.

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You need to coddle them with affection, sincere interest, plenty of research, and a passion to know their story. Patience helps too. That’s the approach Robin McKee uses to unleash the massive story book that is Hamilton Cemetery, sitting high on a bluff overlooking Hamilton Harbour.

Each Saturday morning dozens of enthusiasts follow McKee through the cemetery to hear him interpret somebody’s unique story hinted at by a few words chiseled into granite or marble – like William Winer Cooke, the scion of a prominent Hamilton pharmaceutical family.

“GAR” is written at the top of his tombstone. It stands for Grand Army of the Republic; President Lincoln’s army during the American Civil War. But it’s not an official stone issued by the U.S. Army; it was designed by his family. It gives Cooke the rank of Colonel, but he was more of a close friend of General George Custer than he was a commissioned officer.