Bereaved mother’s 60-year search for answers finally resolved in Adelaide cemetery

A bereaved mother’s 60-year search for answers about the final resting place of her stillborn child has finally been resolved in a dusty back corner of Adelaide’s West Terrace Cemetery.

Maria Russo at the grave of her stillborn son, Bernardino Russo-Rossi, at Adelaide’s West Terrace Cemetery. Picture: Matt Turner

A bereaved mother’s 60-year search for answers about the final resting place of her stillborn child has finally been resolved in a dusty back corner of Adelaide’s West Terrace Cemetery.

One week from Mother’s Day, Italian immigrant Maria Russo and her other now adult children have finally held a memorial service for their son and brother “Rossi”, the little baby who died soon after labour at Adelaide’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital in 1964.

Mrs Russo’s 60-year quest for answers about the whereabouts of her child took her to dark places and dead ends.

It has uncovered troubling evidence of past practices involving the disposal of babies who died before or during labour more than half a century ago.

The mystery of baby Rossi – full name Bernardino Russo-Rossi – begins with a death certificate given to Mrs Russo and her late husband, Rino, after the child’s fraught birth. Rossi was Mrs Russo’s first child, born on May 5, 1964. He had been well throughout the pregnancy but died from complications during labour.

Mrs Russo had her waters broken at the QEH and was administered an experimental drug that to this day she blames for her boy’s death.

Rossi lived for only eight hours and after he died Mrs Russo was sedated and left in a room on her own.

“The person who went home from the hospital was not the same Maria who had gone to hospital to have the baby,” Mrs Russo told The Weekend Australian.

“I was meant to forget about it, that for me it was like it had never happened.”

When Mr and Mrs Russo later received Rossi’s death certificate, it stated the baby had been buried at Hindmarsh Cemetery in Adelaide’s western suburbs.

The couple tried to move on from losing their first child, and started a large and happy family, having another eight children in all, six girls and two boys.

But Mrs Russo always had the memory of her first baby at the back of her mind and 29 years later resolved to create a memorial at the Hindmarsh Cemetery where they believed he had been buried.

To her horror she found out her baby was not there, had never been buried there, and that the so-called record of his burial had simply been made up.

She then embarked on a three decade-long investigation to find out where her baby was, beginning at the QEH, where she collected the names of 35 babies who had died there between March and August 1964, and where they were supposedly buried in Adelaide’s various cemeteries.

She found only one accurate record – and nothing about baby Rossi.

The gravestone carries a poignant dedication that reflects the loss of other families such as the Russos whose lost children were also shuffled around Adelaide’s cemeteries decades ago. Picture: Matt Turner

Hospital and cemetery workers told Mrs Russo it was a common yet illegal practice for stillborn and young children to be buried with adults in the same grave to slash costs. Unsure where her baby was, Mrs Russo and her husband erected a small monument at Hindmarsh, but Mrs Russo was still desperate to find out where her son was buried.

She scoured cemetery records to match burials of adults by Elliott funeral directors on May 12 1964, and found one. She wrote to the attorney-general in March 2014 seeking an exhumation of that grave, but the request was granted only in December last year.

Mrs Russo then faced more heartache. Not only were no signs of any baby’s remains found in the grave, but the exhumation took place without her present, meaning she was denied the chance to find out herself whether or not her son was interned there.

The exhumation cost Mrs Russo just over $10,000.

Soon after, Mrs Russo’s daughter, Annamaria, decided to get involved, doing a wider search of West Terrace Cemetery records through the Adelaide Cemeteries website.

“The whole exhumation process was horrible for Mum, it was meant to bring her closure but it just made things worse,” Annamaria Russo told The Weekend Australian.

But through her own sleuthing work online, Annamaria Russo finally stumbled upon the name Rossi buried in a mass children’s grave – not in May 1964 but three years later, in 1967 – in a vast plot near the Keswick railway line that is believed to be the final resting place of some 30,000 babies and children who died over the past decades.

The suspicion is that the baby was kept in storage until being buried in this mass grave at West Terrace, along with hundreds of other children.

SA independent MLC Frank Pangallo. Picture NCA NewsWire/Emma Brasier

SA independent MLC Frank Pangallo has asked the state government to reimburse Mrs Russo for the cost of the exhumation, and offered his sympathy to her family and every other family affected by these past practices.

“It is a bittersweet ending for Maria,” Mr Pangallo said. “But who knows how many children were involved in this macabre practice? Hundreds, even thousands, without mothers, fathers and families ever knowing the truth to this very day.

“A mother’s love for her children knows no bounds and Mrs Russo’s 60-year search for answers is testament to that.

“One can only be in complete awe and admiration of Mrs Russo’s unwavering determination, commitment and love for her deceased infant son over 60 years – many times against all odds – to unravel the mystery of where he was laid to rest.

“Lesser people would have given up years ago given the many hurdles and challenges she had to endure along the way.”

Last Saturday, Maria and her other adult children finally held a memorial service at West Terrace Cemetery to pay respects to Rossi to celebrate what would have been his 60th birthday.

“It was a beautiful day,” Mrs Russo said. “It is a sad story. But it has a happy ending.”

The gravestone carries a poignant dedication that reflects the loss of other families such as the Russos whose lost children were also shuffled around Adelaide’s cemeteries decades ago.

“In loving memory of Bernardino Russo. 4.5.1964 – 5.5.1964 Loved son of Maria and Rino. And also all the other children resting here in peace in the arms of Mother Mary and Jesus.”