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HAPPY VALLEY CEMETERY
—AND OTHERS
"Jock" Halbert, Port Lincoln
writes:—
While aware of the kindly motives
and civic pride which prompted Miss
H. Brougham to write the article in
the "Times" last week, covering the
Happy Valley Cemetery and the need
for improving amenities, I would sug-
gest one reason for local apathy—
theft and desecration of hallowed
graves.
Two weeks ago, in the "return
thanks" column of this paper, there
appeared a pathetic appeal from the
father of the late "Bill" Rogers, 20,
who was killed in a tragic road ac-
cident.
The notice read "Mr. C T. Rogers,
will thank the person or persons who
removed 40 artificial wreaths from
his son's grave at Happy Valley
Cemetery to return them immediate-
ly".
Describing the vicissitudes of the
cemetery through the years, Miss
Brougham mentioned that when
plants were stolen, the people stop-
ped planting.
So it seems that while ghouls
swoop on the defenceless dead to per-
form these acts, many potentially
good-hearted folk are losing interest
in the cemetery and its amenities.
Nor is the road to this last resting
place a happy journey for mourners
and mourned.
Miss Brougham's claim that the
local cemetery is one of the worst
kept may be contested. Elssewhere
in the State there are many worse
and more derelict "God's Acres".
Carrying out an assignment for a
metropolitan weekly newspaper some
time ago, I attended the mass ex-
humation which the Whyalla Town
Commission effected when transfer-
ring bodies from that town's old bur-
ial ground to the new cemetery.
For years the old cemetery had
been neglected. Graves were obliter-
ated by paths. The hallowed en-
closure became a retreat for "plonk
artists" and vandals often played a
macabre game of swapping tomb-
stones. So neglected was the ceme-
tery, that the town's oldest inhabi-
tant, Mr. Jack Haskell, and the local
undertaker, Mr. Harold Wood, had
much difficulty in pin-pointing and
identifying grave sites.
The exhumation and transfer of
the bodies was attended by a dramatic
and macabre find. Some old Lincoln-
ians and West Coast identities may
recall the personalities involved.
When Whyalla Town Commission
employees exhumed a man's elastic-
sided boot containing human bones
in the old cemetery, wild rumours cir-
culated in the town that a fully cloth-
ed body had been unearthed.
In an interview, Mr. Wood said
he had noticed a mark that seemed
to indicate a small grave. Below 18
inches of soil workers unearthed a
well-preserved elastic-sided boot con-
taining human bones. Mr. Wood
added that he had sought out an old
resident, Mr. Giovanni Bellenich, or
"Jiggy Murphy" as he was known
locally, and after questioning him
about an incident that happened some
years ago was able to piece together
the story.
In 1916 two guards were involved
in an accident on an ore train at
Whyalla. One guard, Clarrie Bishop,
was killed instantly. His companion,
Robert Underdown, lost a leg just
below the knee.
Underdown was placed aboard the
tugboat Mermaid and rushed to Port
Pirie. He died on the voyage, how-
ever, and was later buried in Ade-
laide.
Mounted Constable Frank Holmes,
then in charge of Whyalla, approach-
ed "Jiggy Murphy", who was a boots
at the town's only hotel, to arrange
for the burial of the severed foot in
the old cemetery.
"Jiggy Murphy", 30 years after
he had buried this grim relic, was
able to identify the boot and the
spot where he had buried it.
That old cemetery was the most
dismal and desecrated I have known,
and there are many rural graveyards
in similar condition. I saw Ned
Kelly's almost forgotten grave in
the yard of the Melbourne Gaol, when
that grim prison was converted to
a school of domestic science. I can
assure Miss Brougham there are
many more unhappy and more neg-
lected "God's Acres" than Happy
Valley Cemetery.
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