So after a good bit of looking I finally found the grave of my Great Great Grandmother Mary Morison buried in the Melbourne General Cemetery in 1884 and was presented with a small and pitiable unmarked grave. The sight of it was made more melancholy by the knowledge that her youngest son and three of her grand children had also been crammed into the same narrow space between 1882 and 1893.
This tells me that very likely she and her family were as poor as church mice. And it seems from looking at Rate Books and Business Directories from the time that Mary may well have been separated from her husband Andrew Irvine for at least ten years before her death. He was working as a wood carter down in Mulgrave while she was living in South Melbourne.
I learned that Andrew had died in the Melbourne Benevolent Asylum and had most probably been given a pauper's burial in the Melbourne General Cemetery. So there is no chance of finding him there as pauper's burials were not recorded. At first I was a little taken aback that he had seemingly been "filed and forgotten" by his family. But if he and Mary had gone their separate ways some good time past that makes more sense.
Has anyone had any experience of having an old grave "restored" and properly marked with a stone or concrete slab of some sort with an inscribed brass plaque? I'm just wondering how much of a thankless task it might turn out to be if I undertook to do it and how many pitfalls there might be in wait for a newbie.
This tells me that very likely she and her family were as poor as church mice. And it seems from looking at Rate Books and Business Directories from the time that Mary may well have been separated from her husband Andrew Irvine for at least ten years before her death. He was working as a wood carter down in Mulgrave while she was living in South Melbourne.
I learned that Andrew had died in the Melbourne Benevolent Asylum and had most probably been given a pauper's burial in the Melbourne General Cemetery. So there is no chance of finding him there as pauper's burials were not recorded. At first I was a little taken aback that he had seemingly been "filed and forgotten" by his family. But if he and Mary had gone their separate ways some good time past that makes more sense.
Has anyone had any experience of having an old grave "restored" and properly marked with a stone or concrete slab of some sort with an inscribed brass plaque? I'm just wondering how much of a thankless task it might turn out to be if I undertook to do it and how many pitfalls there might be in wait for a newbie.
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