<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?> <docID>341867</docID> <postdate>2025-04-05 14:09:38</postdate> <headline>Mateship, bravery and tragedy unearthed in the outback</headline> <body><p><img class="size-full wp-image-341864" src="https://citynews.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/headstone1.jpg" alt="" width="800" height="600" /></p> <caption>Outback cemeteries are helping reveal the triumph and tragedy of unheralded Australian lives. Photo: Bernadette Drabsch</caption> <p><span class="kicker-line">Drovers, soldiers, indigenous trackers, scientists, artists and pioneering women are buried in outback cemeteries, their stories feared lost to time until now, reports <strong>STEPHANIE GARDINER</strong>.</span></p> <p><strong>A small marble headstone sits in the rusty red outback dirt, a monument to two men described as "firm friends during life, now resting here".</strong></p> <p>Childhood mates who enlisted in World War I together, Richard Slingsby and James Renshall are spending eternity side-by-side in Ivanhoe cemetery, in far western NSW.</p> <p>The diggers' lives are memorialised in just 40 words cast in stone, their humble grave belying an epic tale of camaraderie.</p> <p>When Renshall was taken prisoner by the Germans in 1917 and feared dead, it was Slingsby he contacted to let him know he'd survived.</p> <p>Upon their return to Australia, the pair worked and lived together on outback stations until they died three years apart in their mid-60s.</p> <p>Historian Bernadette Drabsch was immediately taken with the unusual grave of the two unrelated men and knew there was a tale waiting to be told.</p> <p>"If you go to the grave, you wouldn't know that it's a beautiful story of two mates surviving against all odds and staying great mates until they died," Dr Drabsch tells AAP.</p> <p><img class=" wp-image-341863" src="https://citynews.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/headstone2.jpg" alt="" width="743" height="418" /></p> <caption>Australia's history is encapsulated in its cemeteries, says Bernadette Drabsch. Photo: Bernadette Drabsch</caption> <p>It is one of 106 stories uncovered for Central Darling Shire Council's heritage trail mobile app, which will guide visitors through Menindee, Wilcannia, Ivanhoe and White Cliffs cemeteries.</p> <p>Aboriginal drovers, pioneering women, scientists, artists and European settler families lie in the sparse graveyards, though many of their histories have never been fully explored.</p> <p>Dr Drabsch and heritage specialist Ben Churcher spent 18 months identifying graves, trawling newspaper archives, reading local books and interviewing families for the Stories Behind The Stones project.</p> <p>Wandering through cemeteries is far from morbid, it is essential to understanding the rich character of towns, Dr Drabsch says.</p> <p>"Such an important part of Australia's history is encapsulated in these cemeteries," she says.</p> <p>"Wilcannia was known as the queen city of the west for a reason; it was a thriving riverside town, there were colourful characters that would roll in on a boat and never leave.</p> <p>"The stories out there are unique, ones you would never find anywhere else."</p> <p><img class=" wp-image-341862" src="https://citynews.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/headstone3.jpg" alt="" width="750" height="422" /></p> <caption>Stories Behind the Stones has so far illuminated more than 100 little known outback lives. Photo: Bernadette Drabsch</caption> <p>Some of the most stirring and strange stories describe the incredible hardships of life in the early days of federation and just how close death lingered.</p> <p>Leslie Bennett, a 22-year-old father buried in Wilcannia cemetery, died when a truck full of dead rabbits overturned, trapping him under the 3000kg load.</p> <p>Frederick Bonser, an engineer at Wilcannia waterworks, died of a heart attack in 1946 after receiving news his wife Anne was knocked over by a ram and seriously injured. She lived for another 12 years.</p> <p>Teenager Reuben Clifton was killed when he fell from a horse that bolted through Menindee, his death casting "a real gloom" over the township.</p> <p>There are numerous graves for babies and children, particularly poignant for their deaths caused by ailments easily treated by modern medicine.</p> <p>The descriptions of death on headstones and in public records show how attitudes to mortality have changed over the centuries, Dr Drabsch notes.</p> <p>"We're very much more removed from death these days," she says.</p> <p>"It was such a big part of life in these early pioneering days, one couple would lose five children - how devastating that must be and for us that's just inconceivable.</p> <p>"They would be discussing that as a way of dealing with it, a way of grieving."</p> <p><img class=" wp-image-341861" src="https://citynews.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/headstone4.jpg" alt="" width="749" height="421" /></p> <caption>Cemeteries are shining a light on just how close death lingered for earlier Australians. Photo: Bernadette Drabsch</caption> <p>Bringing the lives of indigenous people and women to the fore was a particular focus for the historians.</p> <p>Newspapers rarely delved into those stories because they were of little interest to the white male reporters and readers.</p> <p>Aboriginal drovers are buried at Menindee cemetery, including John "Jack" Kelly, a Ngiyampaa man who took sheep, cattle and goats across to the Flinders Ranges.</p> <p>That journey could take up to six months and Mr Kelly was known to share Dreamtime legends and stories of his life around campfires.</p> <p>Highly-skilled Aboriginal trackers were also mentioned - though not named - in an unearthed newspaper story about a little boy found 80km from home after going missing for six days.</p> <p>Ivanhoe horse trainer Margaret Linnett is among the women remembered.</p> <p>Her family helped the historians shape her entry, which reads: "The fact of being mother of a large family did nothing to dampen her enthusiasm for the sport of kings".</p> <p>Outback locals have been critical in bringing the stories to life, ensuring their ancestors are not lost to time.</p> <p>"Their stories, their contribution to these towns, are going to live on a bit longer," Dr Drabsch says.</p> <p>"Most people who contacted us just wanted their loved ones to be remembered.</p> <p>"It's about giving the stories back to these people."</p> </body>