QUEENSLAND'S GERMAN CONNECTIONS - PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

Cemeteries of the Scenic Rim

The individuals may be long passed but they still have something to tell us, as Gary Corbett discovered when he toured some final resting places with local historian Colin Pfeffer. As one of the earliest regions settled outside of Brisbane, the wider Fassifern Valley west of Boonah is rich in history and heritage. Townships such as Kalbar, Roadvale, Aratula, Fassifern and Teviotville from the 1850s quickly grew as European immigrants moved to the area. In just a couple of decades pioneering settlers mainly from Germany, England and Scotland established thriving communities in the area. The Germans in particular instilled their own work ethic within the community and created a distinct culture that in many ways has endured to the present day. But what was life in the region really like 150 or so years ago? For anyone wanting to immerse themselves in local history, there are countless historical books on the subject. But who really wants to sit in a sterile library reading accounts of life in the Fassifern Valley in the 1800s when you can get out and, in a small way, see it for yourself. That is exactly what I did recently when I joined well known Scenic Rim historian Colin Pfeffer on a day of discovery touring the area’s cemeteries. The author in the late 1980s of The Fassifern Story , a widely-acclaimed 350-page hardcover book detailing the history of the Fassifern district, Colin is a walking encyclopaedia about the area. Below: Historian Colin Pfeffer at the grave of his maternal grandfather, Jacob Richter, in Kalbar, the former Engelsburg.

At 88 he is still as sharp as a tack and is full of anecdotes about life in the region both during his lifetime and in earlier years. Given the work he put into researching the cemeteries of the Fassifern Valley for his book, Colin was enthusiastic about the cemetery tour - many of which he had not visited for years. Far from being a ghoulish pursuit, the tour provided a fascinating insight into what life must have been like for our early settlers.What came through loud and clear was just how much can be learned from the headstone of a grave. There were graves of newborn babies, the graves of people killed in farm accidents, heartfelt words to lost loved ones and, most chillingly, graves containing a number of children from the same family who did not reach adulthood. In Kalbar in particular what was abundantly clear was the huge influence the area’s German settlers had on day to day life. The township was originally named Engelsburg, however the name was changed to Kalbar in 1916 because of anti German feeling in official circles during the height of World War I. Amazingly, the township has six historic cemeteries dating back to the 1800s – two Lutheran plus Roman Catholic, Salvation Army, Methodist and Baptist – plus the general cemetery that was opened in 1921 and is still in use today. And, as can be expected given the history of the township, all have large numbers of German graves, with many headstones written in German. Fittingly, the first cemetery we visited was the Engelsburg German Baptist Cemetery, where Colin’s maternal grandfather, Jacob Richter, was buried following his death on 16 October 1897. A school teacher in Germany, Jacob migrated to Australia in the 1860s where he established a new life as a farmer in the Kalbar district. Sadly his grave is one of just a few that remains intact in the cemetery, with time and stray cattle taking their toll on the graves over the years. The next cemetery on our list was the Engelsburg Methodist Pioneer Cemetery, which was extensively renovated in 2001. Along with repairing headstones and generally bringing the cemetery into the 21st century, extensive research was carried out at the time into the identity of the people buried there, a not insignificant task considering that many graves did not have headstones. The end result was a list of 53 names, an effort Colin described as a “remarkably good detective job”, given the many hours of research that would have been needed to collate the information.

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