Grieving families: Family members who met with Remembrance Parks Central Victoria chief executive Lauretta Stace at Pine Lodge Cemetery.
Photo by
Megan Fisher
Grieving family members met with the chief executive of the trust responsible for the Pine Lodge Cemetery to express their distress and anger at a change made to headstones at the cemetery.
Hold tight - we’re checking permissions before loading more content
Remembrance Parks Central Victoria chief executive Lauretta Stace met with 11 grieving family members whose loved ones had been buried in a new row at the lawn cemetery over the past five months.
Unlike all the other rows, which have an angled raised headstone that is uniform with all the other graves in the row, this new row has a flat footpath-like surface.
People can then stick their plaque to the flat concrete base or pay to have it on a piece of granite that sits flat on the concrete.
Shepparton’s Ray Cox — whose father, Stan Cox, was buried in the row about five months ago — instigated Tuesday’s meeting, inviting other families as he wanted them to have their say.
“I just want the uniform finish in this plot,” he said.
“It’s (currently) very higgledy piggledy.
“For people to lay their loved ones here is a disgrace.
“I put my dad on a pedestal, and they’ve put him on a footpath.”
Mr Cox’s story was not uncommon among those gathered at Tuesday’s meeting, with a unanimous decision among those who attended that they wanted the headstones to be changed to how they used to be.
Ms Stace said Tuesday’s meeting was an opportunity for her to “listen and observe”.
She told the group that flat beams were common in cemeteries — including at the Eaglehawk Cemetery, another for which the RPCV Trust is responsible — as they could be decorated more easily.
However, she acknowledged that the mood at Tuesday’s meeting was in favour of moving back to the old way of doing things, with angled graves.
Listening: Remembrance Parks Central Victoria chief executive Lauretta Stace (second from left) speaks with those gathered, including Ray Cox (second from right) and Shaun Carboon (right).
Photo by
Megan Fisher
Ms Stace said she would put forward the views of those gathered at the cemetery when an RPCV committee meeting was held on September 20 to discuss the changes.
She promised the group that if other options were put forward at the meeting, she would discuss them with the group and that the trust would write to everyone who had a grave in that row of the cemetery about any decisions.
Speaking to the News after the meeting, Ms Stace said her “preference is to do what the community wants”.
However, she clarified that by saying she was not an engineer and would have to see how difficult a job it would be to change the row of graves and any future ones.
“If it’s not difficult, we’ll do it,” she said.
Discussions: Ray Cox talks with Remembrance Parks Central Victoria chief executive Lauretta Stace.
Photo by
Megan Fisher
Kristine Roberts was among those at the meeting. She buried her son Shane Roberts five months ago.
Ms Roberts paid to have a granite piece put at the head of her son’s grave, but said she looked at that as a “temporary thing” and wanted to get rid of it and replace it with an angled plaque like all the other graves in the cemetery.
Ms Roberts has bought two double graves next to each other in the same row — and plans to be buried in one of them herself.
Shaun Carboon buried his wife, Vikki Carboon, at the cemetery in late June.
He had been holding off having a memorial plaque made since then because he was waiting for an angled headstone to be put on her grave.
He just thought the cemetery was slow in organising this.
He first found out that her grave would not be getting one after reading an article in the News on September 8.
Not happy: A grieving mother at her son’s grave at Pine Lodge Cemetery.
Photo by
Megan Fisher
Mrs Carboon’s parents will be buried in a grave next to their daughter’s, making his need for change even more urgent.
Christie Atkins’ brother, Jonathan Simcoe, was one of the first buried in the row in early March.
“When we came to pick it (the plot), the other plaques weren’t there,” Ms Atkins said.
“Mum thought it was just a walking path.”
Mr Simcoe’s grave is also one of only a few of the 16 with people already buried in the row with the granite piece under the plaque.
Ms Atkins said it was only done because her mother did not want the grave sitting without any headstone, and they were happy to replace the granite with an angled headstone.
Bev Wallace was another at Tuesday’s meeting.
Her husband is buried in a different section of the cemetery, but she felt it was important to stand in solidarity with those buried in this row.
“What’s happened to having respect for people? They should show respect,” she said.
