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Speaker 1: Staying in Wellington. There is a headstone that suddenly appeared

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Speaker 1: at the grave of Phillis Simmons in Wellington and nobody

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Speaker 1: knows how it got there now. Philip Simmons was killed

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Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty one when she was seventeen and pregnant.

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Speaker 1: Her boyfriend killed her and she was laid to rest

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Speaker 1: in an unmarked grave in Karori in the cemetery and

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Speaker 1: a family don't know how the headstone got there, and

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Speaker 1: neither does Wellington City Council Garble tot Taught is a

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Speaker 1: Wellington historian and with me with me now, High Garble.

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Speaker 2: Hello, good evening, love you to be with you.

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Speaker 1: It's great to chat to you. Does she have living family?

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Speaker 2: Does she over in Australia. She obviously left no descendants

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Speaker 2: because she died at the age it was murdered at

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Speaker 2: the age of seventeen, But she did have siblings and

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Speaker 2: over the years they slowly migrated over to Australia where

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Speaker 2: they remain today.

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Speaker 1: Who would have done this if her family doesn't know

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Speaker 1: that it has nothing to do with it.

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Speaker 2: It's really really interesting. I mean, the fact that her

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Speaker 2: grave has been unmarked has been remarked upon over the years.

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Speaker 2: I do know that the Friends of the Karori Semetry,

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Speaker 2: a group that got going about five or six years ago.

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Speaker 2: We're actively engaging with Phyllis Simmons's family over in Australia

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Speaker 2: and they we're working towards getting it, getting a gravestone

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Speaker 2: of some type put on the grave of with the permission.

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Speaker 2: But this isn't it. This had no buy in from them,

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Speaker 2: and so how it's kind of appeared is a little

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Speaker 2: bit of a mystery.

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Speaker 1: It's kind of nice though, don't you think that these

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Speaker 1: kinds of historical injustices have been repaired? Don't you think.

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Speaker 2: It is quite nice? But look, you really can't go

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Speaker 2: putting graves on other people's gravestones on other people's graves

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Speaker 2: without their permission. You know, no permit was issue family,

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Speaker 2: can you know? So going through the family, going through

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Speaker 2: the proper channels that sort of would have been, that

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Speaker 2: would would have been it is a bit of a

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Speaker 2: no no. I mean. The thing is is that if

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Speaker 2: you've ever gone through Coarori symmetry, you will see hundreds,

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Speaker 2: if not thousands, of unmarked graves everywhere where. You see

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Speaker 2: an empty plot of grass and you think, oh, that

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Speaker 2: looks like a lovely plot. I wonder if that's still available.

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Speaker 2: It's a nice spot. I'd like to be buried there. No,

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Speaker 2: there's someone under there. The cemetery is completely full. But

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Speaker 2: back in those days it was really expensive. The graves

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Speaker 2: some of you may be familiar with them. They are

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Speaker 2: full length masonry concrete graves. They were expensive items and

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Speaker 2: when you put in the include the engravings as well

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Speaker 2: as the grave headstone, they were really expensive. Now for

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Speaker 2: the Simmons came from a very humble background. They weren't wealthy,

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Speaker 2: very working class. They just really didn't have the kind

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Speaker 2: of money that was needed and neither did hundreds of

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Speaker 2: other families that are buried there in Calori Semetry.

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Speaker 1: Garble, it's good to talk to you. Thank you, mate, Garble,

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Speaker 1: taught Wellington Historian. For more from Heather Duplessy Allen Drive,

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Speaker 1: listen live to news Talks. It'd be from four pm weekdays,

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Speaker 1: or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio