A Number of Questions Come to Mind...

In the last post I wrote about visiting a number of cemeteries. Well in this post, I'm going to 'revisit' the Wingham Cemetery...

See those gates?

Well just inside those gates was this...! 

Yep! Your eyes don't deceive you...it is a heater! So...those questions???

Has it died and its owner brought it to the cemetery for burial? ( here in Australia we often say when machines/appliances break down that they have 'died' 🙁) 

Or, were some relatives of a 'resident' of the cemetery concerned that their loved one might be cold? 

If so, where will they plug it in?

Or as my brother in law quipped, 'What sort of headstone, would suit a heater?'. 

Just shows you can find something that makes you smile in the most unexpected places. 😉

The Graveyard Safari ??

This post will certainly be a little different to the norm, to say the least!
During the previous fortnight we've visited a few cemeteries. The reason? Taking DH's cousin to visit family graves. This took us to not only Brisbane suburbs, but also to 3 cemeteries in the Taree district. Taree is a town in New South Wales and a 7 hour drive from Brisbane. So...

Visiting Grandmother Johanna's grave at Lutwyche Cemetery here in Brisbane...

Visiting Great Aunt Annie's grave at Dutton Park Cemetery in South Brisbane. Remember, until 2011, Adrienne had believed Annie to be her maternal grandmother. 

Despite having the numbers and section of the Dutton Park Cemetery for where the Mohr great grandparents were buried, we were unable to find their graves. The proximity to the Brisbane River of these graves led us to speculate that the headstones were washed away or damaged irreparably in the 1974 or 2011 floods. Other cousins had recalled that these graves did have headstones when they visited with their parents in the 1950s. By checking marked graves using the BCC's index we were able to isolate an area where we believed the family graves were...

 

The next cemeteries we visited were in the Taree area. The lady on the Information Desk at the Taree Council had already been very helpful via email and phone calls before we had even left Brisbane. Nothing was too much trouble and we left the building with maps etc, provided by Kimm.

The Dawson River Cemetery was in such a pretty spot! 

Some relatives' graves were found but as Billy Lindore's grave is listed as unmarked, we could only guess where his resting place would be.

Adrienne remembered visiting this cemetery in 1960 with her mother and a cousin of her mother's. ...the cousin knew where the unmarked grave of Billy Lindore was and used a large tree as a land mark.  The tree in the next photo looked familiar to Adrienne...but it was a long time ago!

Next stop was Wingham cemetery...and better luck here! 

We had expected unmarked graves for this family, judging by the council records,  but someone has purchased headstones fairly recently.

Last Cemetery for the day was the Redbank Cemetery which had several very old graves as well as some more recent ones.

Right up the back of Redbank Cemetery was an isolated section...this was the aboriginal section. I personally found this very confronting but I guess it was a product of its time...rather sad though. 

In this cemetery Adrienne did find ancestors' graves...the Bugg family, who apparently had links via marriage to the bushranger known as Thunderbolt.
Checking out these 3 graveyards had taken most of the day, but it was good to have achieved such good results for Adrienne. She will upload photos of the graves and /or headstones in the Family Tree on Ancestry.com.