Rookwood Cemetery Discoveries

  We are coming to the end of 2024, and this blog is one of reflection upon all the blogs that have been published under “ Rookwood Cemetery Discoveries”. This year I have highlighted many people who gave their lives for others; those that turned their lives around and benefitted others; many tragic unfortunate deaths and of course those that went off the deep end and shocked us all! The most popular blog this year was the one devoted to Euphemia Bridges Bowes . Mother of eleven children, wife of a Wesleyan minister performing all the duties associated with her role as well as establishing the First Woman’s Christian Temperance Union and other organisations. She worked constantly until she died - at the age of 85! A woman we should all be proud of who until a few months ago had fallen through the cracks of time. Another woman that caught your eye was Ada Hannah Coffill, a woman who completed the full funeral parlour experience as being the first Australian born woman to receiv...

  As we approach Mother's Day here in Australia, let's reflect upon a mother who fought to make every mother's life better. A woman, who in times where men would drink their weekly wages, leaving almost nothing for his family to be fed and clothed on, fought hard to make a difference. EUPHEMIA BRIDGES BOWES Euphemia was born in Edinburgh Scotland in 1816, the daughter of Joseph Allen and his wife Eliza. She was self-educated, an activity rare for a young girl at the time, teaching herself both to read and write. She arrived in Sydney in 1838, classified as a "house servant ” and on the 13th of September 1842 she married John Bowes, a baker, with Wesleyan Methodist rites at Parramatta. John had arrived in Sydney the previous year and moved to Parramatta, where besides his everyday position, he continued his work as a Wesleyan lay teacher. They resided in Sydney before making a move to Wollongong in 1848 when John was accepted into the Ministry. Euphemia bore elev...