In 1872 the site of Dannevirke's Settlers Cemetery was standing bush and in our young town, the question was, "what are we to do with bodies?"
The townsfolk of the time were too busy preparing their own homes to cut trees down at the cemetery site, so if there was a body to bury, someone would take it to the cemetery and simply dig a hole where they could, Sharyn Burling told visitors on last Sunday's cemetery walk.
"In 1892 people in Dannevirke said they needed a cemetery, so 1750 sections, four feet by eight feet, were marked off by John Bargh," Burling said. "Heart totara pegs, at £35, were required, but the town board didn't have the money so it was another few years before the cemetery was surveyed."
There were 1024 plots, but searches by the Dannevirke Gallery of History have only located 835 people buried in the cemetery. Of the remaining, there are 80 graves with no whereabouts.
"There is also a body buried in a plot who we don't know the identity of," Burling said.