Sandi Duclos says it makes her sick to her stomach to know that the graves of 300 nuns — including her two great-aunts — are set to be dug up and relocated from a Waterdown convent.

Duclos, whose two great-aunts are buried on the grounds of Notre Dame Convent on Snake Road, was shocked to learn her relatives’ bodies will be exhumed after her family received a letter last week about the move.

“Part of me is so angry and part of me is so in disbelief that this would happen,” said Duclos, who lives in Kitchener.

According to Sister Vivian Zoller, a community leader with the Notre Dame Convent and the author of the letter, the nuns who still reside at the convent are aging and will soon no longer be able to keep up with cemetery maintenance.

As a result, they’re selling the property and moving the cemetery.

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The bodies and gravestones of the approximately 300 nuns and two priests will be exhumed and taken to the Gate of Heaven Catholic Cemetery, located about 1.5 kilometres away. The move could begin as early as the end of the month and is expected to be completed early in the new year.

The graves will then be maintained in perpetuity by the caretakers of the Catholic cemetery, she said.

“We will all go to Gate of Heaven, figuratively and realistically,” Zoller said. “We are assured that it all will be done with dignity.”

Duclos said she wishes the family had been given the opportunity to voice their concerns before the final decision was made.

In response, Zoller said discussions have been ongoing among members of the Atlantic-Midwest Province of the School Sisters of Notre Dame — the umbrella organization that own the property — for four or five years.

“We’re being realistic and facing the inevitable,” Zoller said. “It just seems the right time to do it.”

The convent has operated on the Waterdown property since 1927, she said, noting the oldest graves would date back to around that time.

Zoller said the property has yet to be sold, but an “interested party” is exploring purchasing it.

As for the logistics of how 300 bodies, along with their accompanying headstones, will be moved, Zoller said the Catholic cemetery is handling that.

When reached by phone, Art Smith, director for the cemetery, said the person overseeing projects was away until next week.

Fifty-four nuns continue to live at the convent, Zoller said, with the oldest nun 103 years old, while the average age of the remaining nuns is about 80.

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Where they will go when and if the property is sold remains up in the air, Zoller said, though the letter states the sisters will continue to reside in the building on the third and fourth floors “until we no longer need this space.”

Duclos remains bothered by the thought of her great-aunts’ graves being disturbed, but she’s trying to come to terms with the decision. She wants to believe the church is doing the right thing.

“Coming from the Catholic Church, and the sacredness of bodies being buried, and then all of these nuns who served God their whole life being moved from their place of eternal life ... you want for your (ancestors) to have eternal peace,” she said.