Kendall's Private Cemetery

Have you ever taken a walk up to Kendall's Private Cemetery (accessed via the tunnel under the highway on South Kiama Drive behind Easts Beach)? The cemetery is home to 35 headstones and 49 memorials. The Family History Centre has researched the cemetery and discovered there are actually 79 confirmed burials in the cemetery. There is now a plaque near the entrance listing all the people buried there.

One such person is Catherine Newell Zillman. The daughter of Thomas Surfleet Kendall, Catherine married Wesleyan Minister John Herman Leopold Zillman. She died in 1875, aged 32, from peritonitis, not long after giving birth to her fourth child. A few weeks prior to giving birth, her husband had travelled with their eldest child to Maryborough, Queensland, to take up a new parish post, leaving heavily pregnant Catherine in Kiama with their two toddlers. Three weeks after giving birth, Catherine fell ill and died. Her husband returned to Kiama three days after the funeral (bearing in mind it would have been a long journey in those days), and then returned to Queensland a few days later, leaving all four of his children behind in Kiama to be raised by Catherine's parents.

Kendalls Private Cemetery 2017

Kendall's Private Cemetery 2017

Catherine Newell Zillman's headstone at Kendall's Cemetery

Kendall family at a family gathering, c. 1874. Catherine and her family are circled in blue.

Names of all people buried in Kendall's Private Cemetery can be seen in the Cemetery