South African family history, genealogy, heritage and interesting places, past and present. All articles researched and written by Anne Lehmkuhl. COPYRIGHT ANNE LEHMKUHL, no article can be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission. EMAIL ME
Buried and forgotten
The cemetery at the corner of Front and Powell Streets in Wellington, is where thousands of Wellington residents rest, but it is now overgrown and drug users and criminals hang out there. A visitor from Denmark, June Nielsen-Ferreira, who could not trace her ancestors’ graves when she visited the site, complained to the local authorities about the disgraceful loss of a major part of Wellington’s history. She included an aerial photograph of the area, with the red-roofed St Albans Primary School opposite the barren site, as well as an old photograph of her ancestor’s tombstones showing a morgue and a tuberculosis hospital in Upper Front Street. An entire section of the more than two hectare site was used for victims of the 1918 flu epidemic. The municipality took over the site in the 1980s from churches like the United Reformed Church (VGK), Zion and the Full Gospel Church. An adjoining well-cared for cemetery still belongs to the Moslem community. According to a municipal spokesman, the grass in unutilised cemeteries is only mowed twice a year. There is also no funding to fence the area, or do research about location of graves. The administration was done by the churches themselves, and no-one seems to have data. The municipality maintains that maintenance of tombstones and grave sites is the responsibility of family members. Rev SG de Villiers, a former minister of the Wellington VGK, is buried there. Drakenstein mayor Herman Bailey’s grandfather is buried there, and so is his wife’s brother. His father was, for a few years, caretaker of the cemetery. In 1995 the municipality accepted a proposal to enclose the area, tidy up the scattered tombstones and to green the area, but nothing came of it. June was told by informed Chantelle de Kock, a municipality employee, that the site did not fall under the Municipal heritage officer as cemeteries resorted under the jurisdiction of the Municipal Parks. She said that should anyone want to take charge of the cemetery it would have to be the community who identified with the particular site.