The Karrakatta cemetery has been under renewal for almost 30 years, yet there are still many families who don’t know their loved ones’ graves are being removed.
A cemetery renewal, also known as a redevelopment, is the process of removing headstones and all visible signs of a burial. New graves are located alongside old graves, and placed in areas previously used as old walkways.
This only occurs when a cemetery is projected to be at complete capacity, and this was expected for Karrakatta cemetery in 2002. Since the plans for redevelopment were approved in 1998, Karrakatta cemetery has so far cleared at least 48 sections.
The WA government calls the redevelopment ‘respectful’, but Saving Family Headstones at Karrakatta founder Carolyn Trigwell calls it, “mass cemetery clearance”.
Ms Trigwell discovered her family lost the right to burial at Karrakatta cemetery in 2017, when she enquired about interring her late sister’s ashes in her parents’ plot.
“I didn’t know what that meant, I was unenlightened back in those days, I thought graves were for perpetuity and you can just renew them, but apparently you can’t,” she says.
In 2012, all grants purchased before 1987 were extinguished, reverting those grave grants back to the Metropolitan Cemeteries Board (MCB), meaning the grant holders are unable to bury more people or make changes to headstones.
Ms Trigwell buried her father, a World War II veteran, at Karrakatta cemetery in 2000.
“If they’d let me know in 2000 that the grant was going to expire, I wouldn’t have buried him there,” she says.
“It was just a traumatic few years, and then I started the group.”
Ms Trigwell started Saving Family Headstones at Karrakatta to try and prevent the mass removal of gravestones.
“It’s not just me, it’s so many people since I started that group who are affected by this as well. A burial site should be respected, it should be there for perpetuity, and as a Christian, I believe in a place where you can sit and talk, it’s very important to a lot of people,” she says.
Hear more from Carolyn Trigwell. Audio: Benjamin McLauchlin.
A member of Saving Family Headstones at Karrakatta, who wishes to remain anonymous, was researching her own, and her partner’s, family history, travelling across Australia to visit the graves of their relatives. When looking at Perth, she found out the grave grant of her partner’s grandfather had expired.
“We were not contacted, and when they said to us about being contacted, they said there were no [mobile] number there, well he was born in 1920 what would they expect? It’s crazy, this is crazy,” she says.
The member and her partner are yet to visit Karrakatta cemetery, but plan to find out exactly where the burial is.
“We’re just digesting everything they’ve told us and then trying to work out a way forward because we’re not going to accept that,” she says.
“We’re just devastated to be honest, that that’s how he was treated. He should be allowed to rest.
“It has to stop. It’s desecration.”
In a statement provided to the Western Independent, MCB chief executive Kathlene Oliver said: “Without the Cemetery Renewal Program, Karrakatta would have reached capacity more than a decade ago and thousands of families would be denied the chance to lay their loved ones to rest at Karrakatta, a place that holds generations of memories.
“The renewal program is essential to maintaining ongoing access to burial and memorial options.”
The Saving Family Headstones at Karrakata group is urging anyone who has loved ones buried in Karrakatta cemetery to lodge their details with the MCB.
