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Parents grieving the loss of their teenage daughter in a car crash 10 months ago are upset they’ve been asked to clear tributes from lawn next to her Maunu Cemetery grave.
Ella-Rose Donker was the only daughter of Robert and Kim Donker’s four children and died aged 18 on June10, last year.
Her grave site and adjacent lawn in Whangārei has held an array of tributes from family and friends.
However, cemetery manager Stephen Jenkins recently asked the Donkers and 13 other families to confine those tributes to within a concrete headstone berm.
Jenkins has acknowledged the request is difficult for grieving families, and he is sorry the Donkers are so upset, but it is important that all families are treated equally, he says.
The Donkers and the family of 33-year-old Jovi Samson, who is buried two plots along from Ella, were also asked to remove small benches they’d put on the graves.
Both families said the request was “heartless”. The pain of losing their children - who died within a month of each other - was still too raw.
“Why can’t they just leave us alone - we’re still going through so much stuff.”
Robert Donker said he understood it might take cemetery staff longer to maintain areas where tributes had been placed on the grass and that it would make their task of mowing with a ride-on too hard.
However, he’d recognised that, and he’d been bringing a mower to keep the site between Jovi and Ella-Rose clear, along with sites either side of them.
“But then they said people couldn’t bring powered equipment either as it created liability issues for the cemetery... and similarly, they’d be liable if people sat on a (graveside) bench and it broke.
“It’s just regulation gone stupid... All common sense has gone out the window.
“I understand they have rules and it’s a lawn cemetery but we’re not doing any harm and they’ve said to me you have to be respectful of other people but we always are. If there’s a funeral on you don’t bring your lawnmower up and start mowing the lawn or anything like that.
“If there’s someone here, I always ask them if they mind - they always say they don’t - but if they did, I wouldn’t mow around Ella’s plot.
Grieving dad Robert Donker wonders why cemetery staff don't object to sights like this, which he says are upsetting for families visiting the graves of loved ones nearby. Photo / Michael Cunningham
Jovi’s mum Lorraine Samson said she had six family members buried at the cemetery but Jovi’s grave was the only one where they’d laid tributes on the lawn, “probably because he’s my son”.
They had also planted flowers on the lawn space.
They moved all the tributes and got rid of the garden at the cemetery’s request but doing so felt like Jovi had died all over again.
“They basically said that because we started doing it, everyone else has been.”
The Donkers and Lorraine hadn’t seen any agreement between their funeral directors and the cemetery.
“When you’re going through all that, the last thing on your mind is to read the fine print on your cemetery plot,” Robert said.
If they’d known they couldn’t lay tributes they’d probably have chosen a different cemetery for Ella.
“I just think it would look horrible having a white cross there and that’s it,” Kim said.
Lorraine said the tributes would be allowed at her family urupa further up north but she chose to bury Jovi in Maunu, where family could visit more often.
Robert said: “I just think they need to have a bit more leeway for people - if things are kept tidy, it’s not really affecting anyone.
“They just need to say, ‘if you want to have something like that you have to maintain it within reason’.”
Kim said: “We keep it tidy, there’s no rubbish, we always take away dead flowers and anything that doesn’t look nice”.
The two families agreed they would likely have removed all the tributes anyway, once their children’s headstones were installed.
While no one could put a time limit on grief, they all felt the cemetery’s request wouldn’t have been such an affront if it had been two or three years down the track.
Robert pointed to two broken crosses that were lying on another concrete headstone berm. It was strange the cemetery didn’t object to that and hadn’t considered those were a sad site for families visiting others nearby, he said.
“I don’t want my daughter’s plot to look like that - like no one even cared.”
Kim and Robert Donker with their daughter Ella Rose, who was 18 when she died in a car crash on June 10, last year. Picture supplied.
Jovi’s partner Sensay Heta said the request was “cold” and had felt like a “violation”. She wanted the cemetery to let them decorate and mourn their loved ones.
“It’s only for so long - until they’re unveiled.”
A compromise like that would be “everything”.
Hopeful of a compromise: Jovi Samson’s partner Sensay Heta says it would mean “everything” if families were allowed to keep tributes on the lawn of their loved ones’ grave until their headstone was unveiled. Photo /Michael Cunningham
Maunu cemetery manager Stephen Jenkins said he was sorry the Donkers were so upset and he appreciated the request would be extremely difficult for families still feeling the raw emotion of losing a loved one - that’s why he tried to make a point of phoning rather than writing to people.
Jenkins said he “sincerely hoped” he and the family could find a way to resolve the matter.
“We really do care.”
But it was important that everybody was treated equally, he said.
Jenkins said the council wanted to preserve the intention of a lawn cemetery - a peaceful, green, and uniform atmosphere, able to be maintained by staff in a discrete, almost invisible way.
When some families laid tributes, others tended to follow until the problem became quite large.
Maunu Cemetery manager Stephen Jenkins says the district council, which owns and maintains the land, wants to preserve the intention of a lawn cemetery, which was to create a peaceful, green, and uniform atmosphere, able to be maintained by staff in a discrete, almost invisible way. Photo/Michael Cunningham
Chair of the NZ Cemeteries & Crematoria Collective Haydn Parr said there were no official rules for cemeteries nationally: “Things have just developed over the decades”.
Lawn cemeteries emerged in New Zealand during the 1950s and were now prevalent.
Parr said grieving families should talk to whoever was in charge of the cemetery they were thinking of using “at the very start of the conversation” around funeral arrangements. A lot of families used funeral directors so weren’t necessarily aware of cemetery rules until after their loved ones were interred.
The main lawn cemeteries in Whangārei are council owned and operated. Purchase of a plot meant the right to be buried there but the land above remained under council’s control.
The council’s website “encourages” people to “commemorate their loved one in a personal way” but set out regulations, including that tributes be “kept to the confines of the concrete berm leaving 150mm from the front and the back to allow for grass cutting and edging”.
Specially designed flower holders or elements such as solar lights could be incorporated into the headstone design.
Personalised memorial benches were available for a fee in a range of suitable spots.
Sarah Curtis is a news reporter for the Northern Advocate, focusing on a wide range of issues. She has nearly 20 years’ experience in journalism, much of which she spent court reporting. She is passionate about covering stories that make a difference.
