Maria Gertrude Carbines

Early pioneers, Joseph & Gertrude Carbines, arrived in the Bunya Mountains in the 1860s, at the time when the wealth of the district was being discovered.

In 1866, while pregnant, Gertrude became ill and her husband Joseph rode the 30 miles to Dalby for medical assistance. Reports conflict on what Joseph did when he arrived in Dalby, however when he returned with the Doctor, they found that Gertrude had died after giving birth. Reports also conflict on whether the baby lived or died at the time.

A distraught Joseph fashioned a headstone for the grave, and after surrounding the grave with a picket fence, he was never seen again. However, almost every year someone visited the grave to keep it in order but they were never seen doing so.

It was assumed that it was Joseph who revisited the grave annually to attend to this task, but some reports suggested that the baby had survived and had been raised by another timber-cutter's family, and it was the child who was returning annually to tend his Mother's grave. Whoever was tending the grave, at the outbreak of war in 1914, maintenance of the grave ceased, and the grave was neglected as the years passed.

When Mr. Abraham Hertzberg attended the convention of the Dalby Chamber of Commerce in 1923, and was taken out to the Bunya Mountains, he was shown Gertrude's grave. When the story was related to Mr. Hertzberg, it appealed to his sympathies, and he suggested that a fund should be raised for the purpose of enclosing the grave with an iron railing to withstand bush fires. The funds were raised and the fence erected by Dalby residents.

An iron fence still protects this lonely grave.

Engraved on the grave stone are the words "Maria Gertrude Carbines", and in Roman numerals are the dates 15/05/1840 - 17/05/1866. On the reverse side of the stone, the words engraved are "This hallowed spot is Gertrude's grave".