Council
6 June, 2026
EXCLUSIVE - Council relocates woman’s ashes – but children are the last to know
Wingecarribee Shire Council dug up and relocated the ashes of a woman in Bowral Cemetery without informing her children.
Wingecarribee Shire Council dug up and relocated the ashes of a woman in Bowral Cemetery without informing her children.
Mathew Watkin and sister Susan Morris were “devastated and disgusted” after receiving an email from council learning their mother’s ashes had been moved.
Susan Joan Luke passed away in June last year and her ashes buried under a family memorial tree alongside her mother – with council’s full approval – in December.
However, her ashes have since been moved and the news delivered by email because a phonecall was considered ‘inappropriate’.
Council cemeteries officer Irene Sheppard told them the relocation had been carried out at the request of Susan’s brother and sister-in-law, Dennis and Elaine Luke.
“Whilst I gave you the option of the location under the memorial tree, Elaine and Dennis have come back to council with a request to move her location as they – and the extended family – were not happy about your mother being between a married couple and separating them,” she told them via email on May 22.
“The decision to relocate the ashes to the other side of the memorial tree was a reasonable request.”
However, while the ashes of Susan’s mother (Florence Clara Lake) are buried underneath the tree, those of her father (Cecil Frederick Luke) are not.
There is a plaque underneath the tree for Cecil – who passed away in 1973 – but he is buried elsewhere.
The Southern Wire has been sent documentation confirming that Cecil Luke was buried in the Contessa Road Garden at Pinegrove Memorial Park in Michinbury, NSW – meaning Susan’s ashes were never placed “between a married couple” as council asserts.
Mathew said he could remember visiting Pinegrove as a child and council had been advised that his grandfather was buried elsewhere.
He even has a map, provided by Pinegrove, of how to find the exact location where his grandfather’s ashes were buried.
To make matters even worse, Susan was indigenous – and council knew it.
“It’s a cultural thing. The dead remain where they are buried,” Mathew told The Southern Wire.
He said it was “highly disturbing” that someone would assume that it’s okay to relocate the ashes of an indigenous person.
Mathew said there had been no communication from his aunt and uncle (Elaine and Dennis) or from council prior to the relocation – despite the fact his sister Susan had been her mother’s primary carer and the executor of her will.
He said council had also sent his sister the $2894.80 bill for her interment.
Mathew said they should have been the first people council contacted if there had been a dispute over where Susan was buried – and they would have “fought tooth and nail” against relocation since it had been his mother’s wish to be buried alongside her own mother.
Records clearly show that Cecil is buried elsewhere and emails from Pinegrove Memorial Park as recently as May 23 confirm it.
They want her put back where she was – and for council to pay for a new memorial plaque given the first one was damaged during the relocation process.
Mathew said it didn’t matter that his mother’s ashes had only been moved a metre away.
“She loved her mother and had every right to be buried where she was,” he told The Southern Wire this week.
Cemeteries officer Irene Sheppard told them (via email) that notification of the relocation had been delivered “with respect”.
“I have tried to honour the wishes of the entire family,” she said.
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