HALIFAX – Fifteen-year-old Marie-Eve’s fascination with a violinist named John Hume started with a school project about Titanic a couple of years ago.
After learning about how the musicians on board played for passengers until the tragic end, she discovered Hume – who was also known as Jock – was laid to rest not far from her home.
“I started reading about him, then I realized he was buried here in Halifax,” she says, “And I was like, ‘Oh! It’s five minutes from here’.”
“It did come as a bit of a surprise,” she says.
Since about 2010, she has visited the grave with her family almost weekly, to lay flowers and mementos in his memory.
“I want to do that because I want people to know that someone special buried there,” she explains. “Because what he did is play on with the band as the ship sank and I want people to see past the name on his stone”
“And it’s really important for me to make people aware he did something like that.”
While many girls her age may plaster their walls with posters of teen pop stars, Marie-Eve has somewhat of a gallery in her bedroom dedicated to Hume.
And her friends are well aware of who her favourite musician is.
“Usually they’re just like… ‘You talk about it too much. Try not to talk about it too much.'”
“But… they know and they’re really aware and one of my friends made me a bracelet (with Hume’s name on it), so I wear that.”
Personal connection to Jock
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Marie-Eve’s commitment to the young violinist’s legacy turned into a personal connection, when she got in touch with one of Hume’s relatives in Great Britain.
It was his great-neice, Yvonne Hume, an author who has written two books about Titanic – one a cookbook, the other about her great-uncle Jock.
“One day I decided to see if there was a way of contacting her online,” Marie-Eve recounts, “to tell her I really enjoyed her book and I found she had Facebook so I sent her a message telling her I was really interested in the story of Jock Hume.
Yvonne Hume quickly wrote back to Marie-Eve and the two have been in contact
For Sophie Brownell, Marie-Eve’s mother, it was a huge shock her daughter’s fascination turned into something even more special.
“When she started becoming interested in the Titanic I didn’t really think any more of it than another subject she’d actually be interested in,” Brownell says. “But” then when she got in touch with Yvonne it became a little different.”
Marie-Eve and her family got to meet Yvonne Hume in person last fall, when she came to Halifax to promote her book.
It was a chance for the teen to get all of her questions answered, but after lots of correspondence it was like two old friends reuniting.
And it was just Hume’s great-neice who heard about Marie-Eve’s touching tributes.
Hume had a daughter born month after he died on that fateful night, April 15, 1912.
Her son – Hume’s grandson, learned of her efforts and sent her a very personal thank you – a copy of his book about the grandfather he never got to meet.
Beyond Halifax
Hume’s grave is one of the most visited in the Halifax cemetery and Marie-Eve has learned she’s certainly not the only one who has been touched by the story of the musicians’ final performance.
She has found mementos left by many other people, but it was one item in particular that has peeked her interest.
“We went to the gravesite once (and) there was a piece of paper folded up,” she says. “I wanted to see who had written it and there was a letter from someone in Calgary who had visited the gravesite.”
Marie-Eve really hopes to get in touch with that person someday and find out why he or she was so moved by Hume’s story.
And while she’s clearly not the only one who feels a connection to his story, she will get to pay an extra special tribute to Hume this summer.
Her family is planning a trip to the United Kingdom to visit Yvonne Hume, when Marie-Eve will get to visit the town where Jock Hume was born, raised and learned to play the violin.
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