Christensen Family of Manawatu, NZ

Public Reserve No. 1, Terrace End Cemetery, PN

Marie's gravesite

Some 2,000 of the around 10,000 people buried at Terrace End (formerly 'Palmerston North') Cemetery, are buried in the small lawn-covered area, about quarter of which is shown above. Leo Burr recalled his mother taking his older sister Vera and himself to see Marie's grave, which would be about at the centre of this photo, and a couple of rows from the fence in the distance. (Photographed 16/12/2000)

Marie's grave was once marked by a 'home-made' concrete cover set flat into the ground, that had bricks around the outsite. Her name had been scratched into it when it was wet. He recalled that the concrete pad was about the size of that over a child's grave, rather than full size. Theoretically Anders made it, but its possible that bricklayer Ola Persson Dahlstrom, who adopted Lydia, might have made it.

At one time, her favourite rose bush, a  deep red 'monthly rose', grew on the grave. This is now long gone, but members of the family have still have rose bushes that have been grown from this rose and its descendants over many decades.

Terrace End Cemetery has been undergoing landscaping work since the early 1990s, after falling into disrepair, with the help of numerous vandals. The cemetery was established in 1875 to replace an earlier one in Cuba Street (now the site of the Palmerston North Showgrounds). It was replaced by Kelvin Grove Cemetery, in the heart of the Stoney Creek Scandinavian Block, in 1927. Burials can only occur at Terrace End Cemetery nowadays where a family already owns a plot. Cremation burials are probably more frequent there now, rather than coffin burials.