You can learn a lot visiting long-lost relatives in the cemetery

I was up early as Aunt Daisy had asked me a few days ago if I could take her to the cemetery out Cessnock way as it was her Aunt Clara and Uncle Joe’s anniversary and she wanted to go and visit their graves.

So, I knew I would be in for a story or two along the way, and sure enough I was. Aunt Clara and Uncle Joe were Aunt Daisy’s father’s brother and sister in law.

My great grandfather was Robert and along with his father and another brother they had left their home in Scotland and moved to Australia in the early 1900s. They found work as timber getters in northern NSW and when World War One broke out being British citizens they enlisted and were sent to the Western front.

My great grandfather was injured a few times, once with mustard gas but in those times, they repaired you and then sent you back into the action.

By the time Aunt Daisy was born her grandfather had died and only his brother, Uncle Joe, was alive.

She remembered him as a tall thin man, very friendly type of fellow and who spoke with a distinctive Scottish accent.

Aunt Daisy loved to talk about her relatives and the one thing she did love about her visits to Aunt Clara and Uncle Joe was her aunt’s morning tea. Aunt Clara made the best scones and served them with homemade cream and strawberry jam.

Aunt Clara was so proud of her scones that she entered them each year in the annual show and displayed her prize ribbons along the wall in her lounge room.

Aunt Daisy’s mum had once asked Aunt Clara for the secret to her scones and Aunt Clara wouldn’t say what it was but Daisy’s mum suspected it might have been lemonade.

When we arrived at the cemetery, Aunt Daisy bounded from the car carrying her favourite tote bag and once at the graveside proceeded to clear away the grass and weeds that had grown over it since her last visit. From inside her bag she brought out a bunch of flowers and set them on the grave stone.

She stood silent for a minute or two before announcing, “They were good people. They don’t make them like that anymore.”

She then gathered up her things and suggested we head for home.

Do you have connections with relatives now long gone?