Eleanor was devastated when her family’s plot was allegedly vandalised. Photo: Jennifer Arnall/Facebook.
A Yass Valley woman, heartbroken to find damage to her family plot, hopes a reward will bring lost pieces home.
”Eleanor’s” great-grandmother left Ireland and arrived in the region, eventually marrying her great-grandfather. Region has changed her name for privacy reasons.
The couple, along with several generations of Eleanor’s family, are buried in a Yass Cemetery grave that her grandfather built.
The family’s plot once had ornate fencing and a cross inscribed with the names of family members, but sometime before June 2024, Eleanor says an “evil-disposed person” removed them.
She had been organising a restoration of her family’s plot when she found out the elements were missing.
“I was doing the plot up because I thought with all the hard work that he did to put it in, it should have stayed there for 1000 years the way it was,” she said.
“I go up the next day [after being told] and my heart stopped. To think it’s been there all those years, and for someone to go to all that effort to take it and to take it from the cemetery, I think is pretty low.”
As part of her campaign, Eleanor and a friend have called on social media for anyone with information to contact police. She is also offering a reward.
She said her only wish was to have the pieces returned.
“It was my grandfather who put it there for his mother,” she said. ”The big cross and the whole thing for the plot … came in 1898.
“Just to bring it from Sydney would have been expensive [when the road] was just a dirt track.”
Eleanor says this photo represents the first incident of alleged damage to her family’s plot. Photo: Jennifer Arnall/Facebook.
A spokesperson for the Hume Police District told Region officers were investigating several incidents of alleged vandalism in Yass cemeteries.
Police said that in July 2023, they received a report that a fence surrounding a headstone had been damaged sometime between February 2023 and July 2023.
Meanwhile, in November 2024, an allegation was made that another portion of the fence had been removed sometime between December 2023 and November 2024.
The police spokesperson said no arrests had been made.
Yass Valley Council said it was “deeply saddened” to hear the allegation, and also urged anyone with information to contact police.
“The cemetery holds significant historical value, and we are working with local police to investigate the matter,” it said in a statement.
Anyone with information can contact Yass Police Station on (02) 6226 9399 or Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
