05/04/2025
Further reading of the Bowral Free Press & Berrima District Intelligencer (NSW) are the following deaths recorded in the Saturday, 15th Oct 1887 edition on page 3 under Deaths.
"SEVERAL deaths have occurred in the district during the present week. On Thursday afternoon last a daughter of Mr. Stuart, of Mittagong, six years of age, was buried in the Wesleyan cemetery at Bowral, the Rev. H.W.T. Pincombe conducting the burial service. The deceased took ill on Sunday last, with diphtheria, the attack being so serious that it baffled all efforts of medical skill to subdue it, and the sufferer died on the following Tuesday."
"On Thursday last a little girl, 15 months old, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Bennett, of Bowral, was buried, the Rev. B. Kenny, Primitive Methodist, conducting the service. The child took ill on the previous Tuesday week, and died on the following Tuesday at 2 o'clock. The cause of death was pleurisy."
"On Thursday week last the youngest child, a little girl about twelve months old, of Mr. and Mrs. W.W. Smith, was buried in Bowral, the cause of death being inflammation of the lungs."
When I photographed and transcribed the headstones within the Southern Highlands, my heart was filled with compassion for the families left behind and the lives cut short, especially of little children. Oh how their families must have grieved. I'm very grateful to Jonathan Auld for providing a way for me to put my efforts out into the world for free. Every cemetery I worked through I grew a great love for the people in that area, their history, their sufferings, their victories and their ways of life. I hope, as you research your ancestors, that you too can gain this love and passion for those who have gone before us.
