Gymbowen Cemetery re-discovered

Congratulations to all involved in having a sign erected at the Gymbowen Cemetery. Few people today were aware of its existence, and even fewer knew where it was located.

Gymbowen Cemetery, the row of pines are on the fenceline between Allotments 90B & 90C

The Gymbowen Cemetery was established on the east side of Marsh & Lowes Rd, south of Hennesseys Rd, in the Goroke Parish, alongside its boundary with the Gymbowen Parish.

5 acres 0 roods 16 perches of Allotment 90C were reserved for a Cemetery in June 1883. 

A further Extension to the north alongside Hennessey's Road, of 3 acres 3 roods 38 perches of Allotment 90C was gazetted in July 1911. 

In 1918 10 perches were excised from the Extension to create the sweeping bend into Marsh & Lowes Rd.

The sign is more than a sign, it details the record of the only known burials at the Cemetery. These and possibly others are in unmarked graves.

The earliest record is for Annie Bertram Byrne. Annie lived for 1 day in 1883. Both the Byrne & Bertram families lived in the district. Members of both families left in the migration to the Riverina in 1900s. Denis married Lucy in 1870. Their other children were Denis born in 1871, George 1873, Michael 1875, Mary Anne 1877. Edmund Bertram 1878, Alecia Jane 1879, William Bertram 1880, James Henry 1882-1883, Evelinne Stewart 1886, Bertram Roach 1888, John Blain 1890, Lucy Emily 1893. Both Annie Bertram & James Henry died in 1883, James' death place is recorded as Harrow.

Mary Frances Mottram also died in 1883, aged 10 months. Her father George Somerset took up land at Gymbowen in 1882 & 1883, but by 1890 was declared insolvent. He stated the causes were crop failures, family sickness & the pressure of his creditors. A son Peter had lived for 1 day when they lived at Mullagh in 1874.

Hugh Knight & his mother Janet, both died in the typhoid outbreak of 1889. William Henry lost his wife Janet, son Hugh, brothers Thomas & Alfred to typhoid fever. Bill too, was admitted to hospital, but recovered. (Cemetery Trustee David Houston's son also died of typhoid in 1888).

On 26th February 1895, 14 year-old William John Lear helped milk the cows but began vomiting blood and complaining of chest pain. After he was put to bed his mother found him lying on the floor dead. The doctor diagnosed syncope due to heart disease & accelerated by vomiting.

John Norman Frederick Scott was another childhood death at Gymbowen. Both his birth & death were registered in 1913. His siblings were Leila Annie born in 1904, Alexander Henry 1905, Peter 1907. Hugh Andrew 1908, Maurice 1911.

More than most the Gymbowen Cemetery shows the hardships & tribulations faced by young families in the district.

Murder in Mind?

As part of Family History Month, the Library is conducting two sessions of 'Murder in Mind?' at Goroke Library on Thursday 22nd at 2:00pm (bring a chair and a plate), and at the Edenhope Library on Friday 23rd at 10:30am.
Come and hear details of The Maryvale Murders, The Gymbowen Mystery, and The Gypsy Queen, and see if you were on the jury could you solve these cold cases or would you come to the same decisions?

Cold cases

Have been working with a couple of local Historical Societies recently on some collaborative projects.
The Western Victorian Association of Historical Societies is about to celebrate its 50th anniversary, and members were searching for a number of missing copies of their journal the 'Western Historian', fortunately the Library was able to photocopy the relevant editions from our collection.

At the same time a number of people are researching a couple of unsolved murders, and are finding the digitised Australian Historic Newspapers on Trove invaluable.

And the unsolved murders? 

• Firstly 'The Maryvale Murders' occurred in 1874, when Maria Cook with her young daughter Louisa, and an unknown man & dog were killed near the Sheepwash Reserve on Maryvale Station
• Second 'The Gymbowen Mystery', where ex-schoolteacher, and recently married Mary Tierney was poisoned via strychnine in 1905
• Finally a case with a verdict of suicide, but which "reeked with suspicion" according to the coroner - the death of 'the Gypsy Queen' Olga Toohey aka Olga Johan, at the Apsley Racecourse in 1931.

 Anyone with information on these cases is welcome to add their knowledge to the file.

Fiery photos

In all the furore of natural disasters, it is easy sometimes for the event to hit the headlines everywhere, but only till the next 'big thing' comes along. Also in this instant and constant stream of information it is easy for ephemeral and items of a transient nature to be forgotten or lose details. Thanks to modern technology, and the efforts of people like Lynton Brown, these events are recorded. The following is from the Karnak fire on 8.1.2013.

Apparently the fire started about 3pm from a disused windmill on a property at Karnak, 15km south-east of Goroke, and with the strong winds fanning the blaze quickly swept north-east through the Kalingur State Forest, into private farm land heading towards Gymbowen. 

Winds gusted up to 50kph during the late afternoon, and police were forced to construct road blocks on a number of roads. Later a helicopter with an FLIR (Forward Looking Infra-Red) camera was used to check for hot-spots. This was the first time the new technology was utilised in the Wimmera. In the end, the fire burnt approximately 920 hectares of forest and grassland.

Sometimes there may be a commemorative book - 'Beyond the smoke : fire, destruction and images of hope' from the 2006 Grampians fire, and 'The Remlaw Fire : our stories from Black Saturday' the fire around Horsham in 2009. But the smaller outbreaks don't warrant the same coverage or notoriety and can fade into oblivion, remembered only by those directly affected.

Now, private and commercial photographs and videos form important historical artifacts, part of the story of this region. It is vital to archive these vinaigrettes, be it on your hard-drive, photo album, Flickr or Facebook, etc. 

Railways - Carpolac line

The Carpolac line was a line serving grain silos in Victoria’s Wimmera district. It branched off the Serviceton line at Horsham. The line from Horsham to East Natimuk opened in August 1887. The line from East Natimuk to Goroke opened in July 1894 and then to Carpolac in May 1927. The line from East Natimuk to Carpolac closed on 8 December 1986, although the last train on the branch ran in February of that year. The Carpolac line is now really marked by grain silos - both metal and concrete - at the station sites. A number of stations also have sheds for the supply of bulk super phosphate storage. In earlier years super arrived in rail trucks bagged.

Stack of wheat bags in a mouse guard at Remlaw, 1930 (Museum Victoria collection)

 Remlaw Siding

The Remlaw silos

 Vectis

Vectis with the platform mound to the left of the silos

Quantong
East Natimuk
Natimuk only the silos remain

The now demolished Natimuk station building (WTWS photo)

Arapiles

A length of rail-line at Arapiles still heads towards Mitre

 Mitre The railway arrived in 1894. Originally the station was named St Mary's, renamed Mitre Lake in 1904, then shortened to Mitre in 1920. 
Heavy rain over the Wimmera district in 1910 flooded the line west of Mitre where it ran on a low embankment through Mitre Swamp. Traffic to Goroke and beyond was suspended, and a new deviation around the northern side of the swamp was constructed. The old line through the swamp was dismantled and became part of the main road to Goroke. 
A large bulk head was built in 1951 and demolished in 1972, and an oat shed was erected in 1968. The grain silos, remains of the platform, and a short section of track can still be found at the site. 

Mitre wheat silos with the oat storage shed behind

 Duffholme was named after 'Lost in the bush' heroine Jane Duff. The railway siding close to the old sheepwash of Spring Hill pastoral station was changed from Nurcoung to Duffholme. It was a 'no-one in charge stopping place' for the rail motor.

Duffholme in 1971 (from "VR stations & stopping places")

Gymbowen The grain silos and platform mound are still evident at Gymbowen. Below the weekly 7am goods train from Carpolac arrivies at Gymbowen on its journey to Horsham.

Gymbowen in 1971 (from "VR stations & stopping places")

RMSP 70 beginning in 1937 and continuing until April 1965, there was a daily rail motor mail and passenger service between Horsham and Goroke. Stopping place number 70 was between Gymbowen and Goroke.

A steam loco at Goroke in 1967 (from "C.R.S.V.")

Goroke In July 1894 the line opened to Goroke. Passenger services ended in April 1965. There were still rails and signal masts existing in 1986, and the freight shed below was believed to be the former station building, now only the platform embankment and the silos remain.

Goroke freight shed in 1986 (WTWS photo)

 Mortat in 1989 and only the goods shed was left, this too is now gone and only the platform embankment and an iron storage shed is visible.

Mortat building and bins (WTWS photo)

This Wimmera grain line petered out when it reached the terminus at Carpolac in May 1927. Carpolac is still a grain receival point, the silos and the storage shed remain, and there are a number of grain bunkers on the site. The Carpolac line from East Natimuk closed on 8 December 1986, which gave it a life of just 59 years.

Carpolac in 1989, 3 years after its closure (WTWS photo)

Further information and photographs at

 Victorian Railway Stations and When there were Stations and Neville Gee's "VR stations and stopping places" and John Sargent's "Country railway stations Victoria" series