Mexborough & Swinton Times – Saturday 28 September 1912
Closing Burial Scenes
An Impressive Memorial Service
The last burial service in connection with the kb Colliery disaster was held at Denaby on Monday.
In some respects it was more impressive than any of its predecessors, inasmuch as the sorrowing mourners included the widows and relatives of two victims of the disaster, whohad not been satisfactorily identified.
In these sad circumstances, the service conducted in the Parish Church by the Vicar (the Reverend S.F. Hawkes), had a special significance, for in the last rites the clergyman and the black garbed congregation gathered together for the purpose of committing to the ground “for earthly bodies of two men who, by whatever name they were known in his life, had died nobly and bravely,” supposed widows were present only supplementing the praise of the Vicar for the prayers of their souls to God.
The widow’s in question were Mrs Anna Stone, of 39, Warmsworth St, Denaby, and Mrs Mary Dove of Garden Lane, Conisborough.
Before the cottage left the church to Vicar gave a short address relative to the usual circumstance that surrounds them, and many of the congregation were moved to tears.
The Vicar said: We have been asking week by week that men and women should pray for those of lobstermen they have loved and they have been praying. Now today we have an added sorrow. There is no doubt in the minds of those who are left without really, this afternoon before the altar of God, with the bodies of those whom they loved. And therefore we want to ask ourselves what we pray for this afternoon? What are we doing? We always do two things in the burial service. We commit the souls of those who have gone, to God’s love and protection. We commit the dust to dust whence it came.
We are with no shadow of doubt with absolute confidence gathered here this afternoon before the altar of God to commit to God’s love and protection the souls of Frederick Stone and Willie Dove. We shall think God in the churchyard for taking the souls to himself.
And what else are we doing? We are committing the poor earthly bodies of two men, and whatever name we knew them in his life, who died nobly and bravely – we are committing them to the earth with Christian reverence and Christian faith.
The United “Amens” that followed the impressive utterances of the prayers made the atmosphere a spiritual one.
At the cemetery the graves had been prepared in close proximity to each other and the Vicar uttered the committal sentenced in turn over each of the bodies.
The coffins bore the following inscriptions:
“Presumed to be Willie Dove, who died July, 1312. aged 42 years”;
and “Presumed to be Frederick Stone, who died 9th July, 1012, aged 33 years.”
There were several expressions of sympathy and the attendance at the funeral of the local Ambulance appropriate for the passing of two more heroes of the mine.