After the dealth of an infant, a cemetery was considered to be needed in the Tarin Rock are on the eastern edge of the Shire. In 1915 on the Lake grace road (now call Old Lake Grace Road) a cemetery was gazetted and was located on the corner of location 14805. I understand this cemetery was closed though on request, can be used by families to keep their loved ones together – as happened as recently as the 1990’s.
Even the little town of Moulyinning had a cemetery gazetted north of the town by Dumbleyung Road Board (Shire) in 1938. It was never used and in 2009 was converted into a nature reserve.
Short stories:
Missing man – no grave
In 1893 gold was discovered in Coolgardie. Various prospectors tried to find a direct route to the goldfields for those who left Albany port. The successful team of John Holland and the two Krakoue brothers founded ‘Holland’s Track’ from Broomehill to Coolgardie. Not so successful was prospector Mr McIntosh. A good bushman, he set out from Katanning with one horse and what we could comfortably carry. A fortnight later some sandalwood cutters came across McIntosh’s horse at a spring called Merilup Soak (present day, Kukerin Golf Course). The matter was reported and a police officer, John Maher with indigenous tracker proceeded to search for the missing man. They backtracked fifteen miles from where the horse was found. As they described it, it was desert and scrub and they found all the unfortunate man’s equipment and empty water container, but Mr McIntosh was never found.
Body lost than found
This story is relayed by Peter Dawson in the Dumbleyung and Districts Short Stories Book. Two gentlemen trapping rabbits on the Kersley farm adjoining the Dumbleyung Lake went swimming on a warm day and only one man returned. He reported the missing man to Mr Kersley, then the police. The police went to the scene to find where the two people went in, but could only finds one set of tracks coming out.
Several business men and local Constable R Pilmer searched with a motor boat with no success. This was in September 1933. Then in 1944 when the lake was dry, Mr Harry Wann, well-known local green grocer, was wondering over the dry lake bed near the Coblinine Rover enters, when he came across the skeleton of the missing man, Petros ‘Peter’ Koster. Mr Koster was of Macedonian heritage. He dies on the 13th of September 1933 and was buried on the 14th of October, 1944. The grave now has a headstone, put up by his family.
Confused Graves
An old story from y memory involves the confusion of two graves side by side at the Kukerin cemetery. The question was which name belonged to which grave. To solve the problem, so the story goes, a prominent Kukerin citizen, in the middle of the night with a hurricane kero lantern and a shovel, dug down to the coffin, rubbed the dirt off the name plate and solved the problem. All the graves at Kukerin Cemetery that were without headstones have been marked with little plaques.
Article provided by anonymous.