It’s the first Cemetery Series entry outside of Argentina!

I’d like to start by thanking the Friends of Karori Cemetery, who (in addition to researching its history) organize tours of cemetery, and led us around during our visit. That visit occurred on Suffrage Day, so the tour was focused on a few of the women who in life signed the 1893 women’s suffrage petition. You can read more about how New Zealand was the first self-governing nation to grant women the right to vote, if you want to get deep in your feels about the deficiency of your own home country, a depth I think many of us have some solid recent experience with. But I digress.

Karori Cemetery was opened in 1891, following the stuffing-to-the-seams of the cemeteries closer to the center of the town. Karori at the time was still rural, and so the first burial, that of premature infant Frederick Fish, remained alone on a windy, bare hill for six months, when the next burial took place.

Karori Cemetery is the second largest in the country, and has about 83000 burials (and counting). Being so big, I didn’t see all, or even most, of it–but broadly, the big sections are the Catholic, Anglican, Jewish, and public sections.

There is also a Servicemen’s cemetery (established in 1916 for obvious reasons), as well as a few dozen victims of the SS Penguin shipwreck. The dead of the 1918 Influenza pandemic are marked with white crosses. Boy, the 20th century sure was something!

Naturally, as I took photos, I assumed that I would remember at least the basics of the people mentioned. I assume this every time I take photos on a tour, and I am wrong 100% of the time, but hope springs eternal, along with wildly unearned optimism.

Let’s take a look at some of the grave symbolism, a thing that modern graves are often woefully short on (although I did not upload any photos of stones inscribed with the disconcerting euphemism of “fell asleep on” such-and-such date).

I haven’t been in New Zealand long enough to know much about Maori symbolism, but here’s a couple of graves I passed that include some.

Let’s look at the inside of the chapel and crematorium, since I did not get a photo of the outside for some reason. It was built in 1909, which you know because that’s the large number chiseled on the wall.

The glass windows were commissioned to memorialize members of William Ferguson’s family, including 8-year-old daughter Louisa (I know, but you can’t talk about cemeteries without mentioning some real raging bummers). They came from the Irish workshop An Túr Gloine, world renowned glass artists. “Faith,” shown below, is one of two created by Wilhemina Geddes, noted glass bad-ass.

The windows held to be real gems of stained glass art by those who are into that sort of thing, and having done a tiny bit of stained glass work in my teens, I can vouch for its hardcoreness, in terms of blood shed.

Before wrapping this entry up, let’s have a peek at a couple more gravey vistas.

The Karori Cemetery is open every day, and I believe you may go in even at night, although the road gates are closed at dusk. There are a couple of self-guided tours (linked above, for soldiers and the SS Penguin victims), and the Friends offer themed tours on the reg, so consult their page for information.