Rookwood Cemetery Discoveries

  It's New Year's Eve so let's reflect on who has been revealed in Rookwood Cemetery Discoveries in 2023. The year has been filled with many published blogs about people who chose a life of service helping others as well as those who chose not to; tragedies that were heartbreaking and secrets and scandals that shocked us. A view of the Old Catholic section - author's own collection  My most popular blog was the one devoted to Lucy Farrow, mother of John Villiers Farrow, Hollywood producer and film maker and grandmother of Mia Farrow. The next most popular was that of the murder of Leticia Frances Cavanagh and followed by the Banka ferry disaster and slaughter of innocents. You also liked the story of the "bad" mother of Macdonaldtown, Sarah Makin. Henry Shiell, the City Coroner, was a popular read as was one about the secrets and scandals found in Section One of the Old Anglican Section. It seems I will need to find more titillating material to engage ...

  It's film awards season and this week's blog has links to the Oscars... The person we highlight today was, until the last few years, lying in an unmarked grave but now has some recognition. LUCY FARROW Lucy Villiers Savage was born in 1884 in Brunswick Victoria, the daughter of George Savage, a tailor's trimmer, and Emily (nee Piggott) a dressmaker. They lived in Brunswick, a suburb north of Melbourne, which was a fast-growing area populated by a mixture of working class and “new rich”. We next hear of Lucy when she marries Joseph Farrow in Granville, western Sydney, in 1903. A place of tanneries and woollen mills, it was very much a working-class suburb. Lucy Farrow - from Wiki Tree with thanks Their son, John Villiers Farrow was born in February 1904. When he was three years old his mother died whilst an inmate of Callan Park Asylum. Lucy was only 23 years of age. A victim of post-natal depression? In 1873, the government of NSW purchased the Callan Park s...