Around about New Year I decided that 2009 was going to be my year of travel. I figured that the more people I told this to, the more likely I was to actually travel. So I’ll write about it in our blog – that’s bound to be at least four more people who know.
I’m thinking travel of all kinds; last week a former travel companion sent me a copy of Alain de Botton’s The art of travel, and next week I’m sitting my restricted driver licence test – I am feeling motivated for all sorts of travel opportunities to open up.
So, in that spirit, here’s our first quiz for 2009.
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For more than 100 years the body of murderess Minnie Dean has lain in an unmarked grave in Winton cemetery, since her death by hanging in 1895.
But some time last week, probably in the dead of night, a plaque was laid above her grave. It reads: ‘Minnie Dean is part of Winton’s history. Where she now lies is now no mystery.’ Apparently, according to locals, everyone already knew where she lay; and now the big mystery is who put the plaque there.
In a further strange twist, overseas relatives of Minnie Dean were soon to lay a headstone of their own. Dean’s great-grandnephew Martin McCrae, of Stirling, Scotland, asked permission of the Winton Community Board. It seems they approved it after realising they had no legal right to turn down the request. According to this Southland Times editorial, the Southland District Council considered a headstone was considered inappropriate as recently as 2001, showing how alive these century-old crimes are in the minds of some locals.
Minnie (Williamina) Dean is possibly Winton’s most famous resident, past or present – at least, she’s the only one I’d ever heard of. She bears the dishonourable distinction of being the only woman to have ever been hanged in New Zealand, after she was convicted of child murder. She was a baby farmer – an old-fashioned term for people who took in unwanted or illegitimate children for money. She looked after as many as nine children under three in her small house, The Larches.
She was arrested after the bodies of three children were found buried in her garden. Even though she was convicted of murdering them, some believe their deaths may have been accidental.
Since her execution, Minnie Dean has lived on in Southland folklore. She grew into a mythic bogeywoman to frighten children with – especially misbehaving ones. Legend has it that grass never grows on her grave, which locals put down to ‘the odd spray of weed killer rather than any curse,’ according to a TV3 news report. Though I note that the news item showed as healthy a coverage of grass on her grave as anyone else’s.
The efforts of the poetic mystery-plaque placer look to be short-lived – the family intend having it removed and replaced with their official headstone.
Posted 5 February 2009 // Julia Vodanovich // No comments » 
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