Menzies Cemetery

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Chris has always been fascinated by cemetery's. You can learn so much about your history from them. Menzies cemetery is no different. It is in need of a good weed at the present time and I expect that this will happen at the end of spring.

Even before entering the newly installed gates Chris dived off into the bush to photograph a cassia.

The iron marker depicting the cemetery mentions a prospector who committed suicide after being bashed and robbed.

An information sign inside the cemetery mentions that some of the people buried here died from typhoid, dysentery, heart problems, diabetes, exhaustion, pneumonia, mine accidents, suicide, burns and many other problems. Found it interesting that there was no mention of childbirth which is generally one of the main reasons young women died.

Many of the graves are for children who had a much higher early death rate at the time.

One of the graves is of the 6th son of a knight from Great Britain, the son was a Doctor and Surgeon and he died at 38 years old.

The acreage of the cemetery is impressive. There are a lot of graves which have no markers at all and as is usual some very substantial headstone and for the first time a range of tin memorials and a couple of cast iron ones as well.

Tomorrow we head off to Niagara Dam and will be out of communications range. Chatting to the caretaker of the CP she tells me that the road out that way is now tarred. Unheard of!

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