Huge win for widows after burial plots expired
A group of widows from Perth will have their final wishes honoured after the government backflipped on a policy that would prevent them from being buried next to their last husbands in pre-purchased cemetery plots.
The women paid for the graves at the East Rockingham Pioneer Cemetery, which has since closed, more than two decades ago when their partners died, not knowing that the purchase came with a 25-year expiration date.
In August, 81-year-old Shiela Goble shared her plight with A Current Affair, sharing her devastation at the prospect of not being laid to rest next to her late husband Fred, who she was married to for 40 years.
"Oh good grief, it's just nasty of the council, it really is, how can they do this to all the widows," Sheila told ACA.
"He thinks we're going to be buried together there, it's heartless, it really is," she said.
Fred's plot, as well as Sheila's, was purchased in 1998, for the pair to be buried side by side at Perth's East Rockingham Pioneer Cemetery.
The Governor of Western Australia then closed the ceremony in 2009, with the City of Rockingham then adopting a policy which allowed it to "provide persons who do not hold a Grant of Right of Burial", meaning a current lease, the right to be buried with family".
That policy was scrapped in April this year, and after Sheila's lease expired one year ago unbeknownst to her, she was told she could not renew it and had to find other burial plans.
However, after the state government and local council identified more than 200 residents that had been impacted, it amended the order, allowing those who previously held a right of burial to be laid to rest there.
"[I feel] fantastic, I can keep my promise to Fred," Goble told A Current Affair. "Thank you, I didn't think this day would come."
Image credits: A Current Affair