Taphophile Tragics #2 - A story there for the telling

Mooching around Jamieson Cemetery, in the Victorian High Country, I was rivetted by the proximity of three dates within this enclosed plot. Charles died in the March, Mary died in the July, and inbetween their daughter Lily was born. What on earth happened? Lily lived to about 90. But, how did she get on?

Ancestry.com is a marvellous resource for this sort of venture, and many of the Family Trees therein are public.


Charles Bullbrook Mitchell was a miner who died 16 March 1876 when he was thrown from a horse. His wife, Mary Anne Heritage Mitchell died just four months later on 15th July 1876 from uterine phlebitis. The name Heritage clanged my attention like a magnet, and I soon discovered it was bestowed upon Mary by her first husband, Henry, whom she married in 1854 at the tender age of 18. Their first son was born and died in 1854, and their second son was born in 1856 AFTER Henry's death in 1855. Mary Anne did not have luck running her way.

However, she was not without charm, our Mary. By the time she and Charles were married in 1868, they already had six children with the Heritage-Mitchell surname, proving that the bureaucratic view of the world ruled supreme. They were to have another five children. Every single one of their eleven children was female. Lily, as the grave marker notes, lived to nearly 90, and her only child, Thelma, lived to 89. In the photograph below, Lily is on the front left, and Thelma is at the rear right.

But what happened after July 1876. With a new-borne babe, and eleven siblings without parents ...

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My thanks to Letty at Freefalling for the idea of the map showing the cemetery. This post is a contribution to the Taphophile Tragics meme.