One year after planting a memorial tree and scattering her late husband’s ashes at its base, Winara Shepperd was devastated to find it snapped in half.
The damage appears to have been done on purpose. At the base of the tulip tree and near the memorial plaque bearing Don Shepperd’s name in Harbourview Park, a rock painted with the personally meaningful image of a swallowtail butterfly was cracked in half.
Kyla Shepperd, Winara and Don’s daughter, painted the butterfly on the rock and chose the tulip tree specifically because it is the host tree for swallowtail butterflies.
“As a kid, my dad and I raised monarch butterflies and I still do,” said Kyla. “A couple of days after my father died, I saw a tiger swallowtail butterfly in my yard.”
A rock painted by Winara bearing the name of her husband alongside attributes like “kind, artistic, gentle,” is missing from the memorial.
The Shepperd women, including Winara, Kyla and Tiegan, raised donations to cover the $500 cost to plant a memorial tree with a plaque in a town park. Don died on June 12, 2021, and his family dedicated the tree to their late husband and father on Aug. 13, 2021, which was his birthday.
“We wanted a place we could come, and other people could come if they wanted to, that wasn’t a cemetery,” said Kyla.
“He liked to come here. We would ride our bikes here together,” said Winara, who has lived in Collingwood with her family for 50 years.
Winara discovered the damage on Aug. 15, two days after what would have been her husband’s 74th birthday.
“We have mixed feelings,” said Kyla.
“Upset, mad, but mostly just sad,” said Tiegan.
The family reported the vandalism to police, and the town will replace the tree with a new one.
But the damage was still done.
“If someone knows something, they could come forward and say sorry,” said Kayla. “There’s not much to do now. It’s ruined and it’s had an effect on us.”
The family would like to get the missing rock back. It’s painted with a blue background and bears Don’s name, plus the character descriptions included by his wife.
“I hope it doesn’t continue to happen,” said Kyla.
The tulip tree dedicated to Don was the second to be vandalized at Harbourview Park this summer.
The first tree found destroyed along the Harbourview waterfront was also snapped in half, and the broken piece was burned.
Collingwood parks manager Wendy Martin said this is the first year the town has seen memorial trees being destroyed.
There have been instances of branches being broken at the Collingwood Arboretum, but not enough to completely destroy the tree.
This year there has also been more paint vandalism along the waterfront than the town usually deals with.
“It’s on signs, boardwalks, anything they can paint on,” said Martin. “In previous years, they might do it once. Then we remove it and that’s it. This year, it keeps coming.”
Martin said the graffiti is the same each time it is painted on town property.
She confirmed the town will replace the memorial tree.
“It’s part of the program. We’ll replace it twice, and if it needs to be replaced a third time, we have a conversation about the location and type of tree,” said Martin.
The replacement clause is typically to cover a tree that dies, not one that’s destroyed.
Martin said the town gets the memorial trees from a local nursery and they are usually 30 to 40 mm in diameter. They cost about $450.
“It’s very disheartening to start over again with a smaller tree,” said Martin.
Because of the recent vandalism, the town is looking into security cameras in parks, she said., adding town staff also update OPP on a regular basis.
“We’re relying on people to keep their eyes and ears open and report to Crime Stoppers or OPP,” said Martin. “Unfortunately, a lot of this happens at night when parks aren’t as busy.”
The Collingwood OPP hasn’t seen a marked increase in vandalism in town this year, but Const. Martin Hachey confirmed the memorial tree vandalism was reported to police.
“It’s very unfortunate,” he said, referring to vandalism in general as a crime of opportunity. “Someone decides to act out and picks an inanimate object.”
He encouraged residents to report acts of vandalism to Collingwood OPP.
Non-life-threatening and non-emergency crimes can be reported online at opp.ca, or by calling 1-888-310-1122.
