Gravesite on a golf course: Tim The Yowie Man takes a look at Queanbeyan's Faunce family

The Canberra Times

Anna Maria Faunce died on January 29, 1839, when she was only two months old. Her gravesite now sits beside the 12th hole at the Queanbeyan golf course.

Transcript

00:00A golf course is the last place you'd expect to find someone's final resting spot.

00:07But here, near the 12th tee on the Queanbeyan golf course, lies the remains of Anna Maria Fonse.

00:16At just two months of age, the daughter of Captain Alred Tasker Fonse, the town's first police magistrate,

00:23died in January 1839 and was buried on what was then just a knoll above their family home, Doddsworth House.

00:32In the mid-1900s, the historic home was abandoned and it later burnt down in 1967.

00:39About 1934, while walking along the Queanbeyan River, ten-year-old Enid Gard and her teacher father

00:47found Anna Maria's broken headstone. They reassembled it as best they could and left it there.

00:54Fast forward to 1972. Enid and husband Roy Wheeler rediscovered the fragments of the headstone

01:02under a few inches of soil exactly where Enid believes she left them 38 years earlier

01:09on what had become the newly-created back nine holes of the Queanbeyan golf course.

01:15Later, several of the fragments were collected and mounted on a board and kept at the Queanbeyan Museum.

01:21The board has since gone missing and today just two stand-alone fragments are identified in the museum's collection.

01:29With nothing to mark her final resting spot, Bob and Margie Quadling of OutbackGraves.org,

01:35a not-for-profit organisation attempting to formalise unmarked graves across the country,

01:40teamed up with Tony Maple, a fellow researcher from Canberra and Region Heritage Researchers.

01:47Tony conducted a thorough analysis of existing records, old maps and aerial photography

01:54to narrow down her final resting place within a 10-metre radius.

01:59I recently joined Tony and a small group of history buffs as Bob and Margie,

02:06along with Blake Allred Dallon Faunce, the great-great-great-grandson of Captain Faunce,

02:13unveiled this plaque near the 12T in Anna Maria's memory.

Category

Transcript

Recommended