For well over a century Laurin Monuments have been producing memorials and servicing the needs of the Jewish Community in Ottawa. From our start in 1900 until the late 1930’s our monuments would often be delivered by horse and buggy to the old Murray Street Synagogue. The monuments would then be collected, delivered and installed in early spring at the old cemetery on Bank street. Some of the larger headstones in sections 1 and 2 of the old cemetery could take 4 men up to 3 days to install.
Laurin Monuments have sculpted, produced and installed over 2,500 memorials for both the Old and New Jewish cemeteries in Ottawa. We have also manufactured monuments for Jewish cemeteries in Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver and New York. Our list of notable local clients reads like a who’s who of the local community.
Over the past century we have produced monuments for The National War Memorial, The Holocaust Memorial, a variety of NCC projects and headstones for Prime Ministers Laurier, King, and Pearson.
In the 1950’s the Laurin family passed the torch of ownership to the Parisien family. Laurin Monuments remains with the Parisen family to this day.
In the 1990’s we began the process of automating and computerizing the production and design of all of our monuments. We developed a software program called “Memorial Designer†which is now the industry standard and is used by the finest masons around the world. The program allows us the ability to create a monument template showing you the inscription exactly as it will appear on the stone. It also allows us to easily document, store and retrieve you family’s memorial records. We maintain the largest archive of memorial history at both Ottawa cemeteries.
