Laverton Cemetery – Old Graves
WA 10th Sept
Living archive means – archive which is used – re-used – recycled – visited – remembered – day to day surviving. it isnt an archive which is siting ideal or abandoned.
till now in this small town i have found two Living Archives:
1. The Laverton cemetery
and
2. Peter Wills Yard – he is a collector of things which are thrown or abandoned – you might call it dumping yard or junk. but this junk yard is unique. will write about it as my next story.
Now it is about laverton Cemetery: in 3 parts
some info
of this cemetery:
huge area – divided into 3 parts –
visually divided without a fence. you can call it a landscape divide or a content divide.there used to be a wall but it is now broken down. there used to be a huge fence but now it is open to the landscape.
1. Area with old graves – historical graves – mostly early 20th century to mid 20th.
2. New Graves – with colourful flowers (offerings)
3. Unclaimed Graves – this too can be dated back to early 20th century to mid 20th century.
Area map i constructed:
Recorded map: resourced from Shire of Laverton office
The old Graves:
– most of it ends around 1940s.
maximum area is covered by the old graves- you start walking towards south you see all the graves are facing east, most of them have mud or stones covered. very few have a cross – but all have a marking with a number, I am sure it is recorded by the Shire office. Few have cemented or concreted the area with plaques. the landscape looks like small hillocks and you continue walking and suddenly you notice, almost in the middle you see rough rocks there are few graves not maintained and you easily notice some difference they are not facing east but they face towards the north. and you realise these 5 graves are of Afghans (Australian Muslims) and no one is there to maintain it. I am sure they where acknowldged and given due respect as they are part of the main cemetery. it seems few years back there was a lady who used to come every week and clean the place and maintained it because she was partially Afghan, she gave her respect to her ancestors by keeping these graves clean. after she left it is back to its ruin.
Way to the Cemetery:
The Old Cemetery: Christian Graves – Facing East to West:
The Afghan Graves: details in the next issue.
