Henty Tidy Town stalwarts Yvonne Booth and funeral director Ed Dale have helped a number of families find closure after uncovering the secret of where their stillborn children were buried in the Henty cemetery many years ago.

Mr Dale believes there are between 20 and 40 stillborns buried at the Henty cemetery whose graves are unmarked.

Knowing the sensitivity of the subject and with some trepidation, Mrs Booth contacted families of the stillborn children they had located in their research.

Mrs Margaret Hasler, a resident of Pleasant Hills couldn’t believe the news.

Although it brought back sad memories, she said, “I was told to go home and forget but I had no idea there was a little grave.

“I couldn’t believe there was a spot I could come and visit.”

Margaret’s daughter-in law Toni brought her to the cemetery recently and they put flowers on the grave. Husband Ron and sons Mark 40 and Adam 28 want to visit the grave too.

Etched in Margaret’s memory was the

last check-up Ron and she attended just two weeks before their baby was due in 1967.

“The doctor said there was nothing there,” Margaret said.

“I was drugged and put to sleep in

hospital and Ron drove home. I bellowed and screamed all the next day and after the birth, was told to go home and forget it.”

Distraught, Margaret remembers saying to the doctor, “it took me eight bloody years to make that one. Ron took me home very quickly after that.”

The couple never saw or held their baby.

Margaret was told the baby had died because she had developed gestational diabetes. She asked and was told by the doctor they’d had a baby boy.

At home with no counselling on offer, Margaret would go into the baby’s room and cry amongst the baby’s things.

Margaret lost a lot of motivation at this time. “We ate a lot of tins of spaghetti at the time,” she said.

Wednesday was Mary and Terry Driscoll’s first visit to the cemetery to see their son’s newly marked grave.

It was an emotional experience for the Yerong Creek couple whose son was born full term in 1956. The second of seven

children, he died during birth, the umbilical cord around his neck.

“After he was born they lay him on my stomach and the doctor told me he had died,” Mary recalled.

“He looked the spitting image of my father-in-law, the dear little thing.”

Mary remembers feeling sorry for her

husband Terry who was alone when he buried their son with the priest and

undertaker Mr Cochrane.

“We have never forgotten him but we

didn’t know where he was buried in the cemetery,” Mary said.