Hello Colleen, Actually,the majority of recovered bodies are buried in three mass graves at the Old Church Cemetery, Cobh. There are also a number of private graves in the same cemetery.
The problem arose through sheer pressure of work, Cobh, or Queenstown as it was in those days, was ill prepared to accept almost three hundred bodies at once, there were only a couple of undertakers and even though more were brought in from other towns and villages, they were unable to cope. Many of the American relatives wanted their loved ones shipped home for burial which entailed extra time embalming the bodies (some, unfortunately, not properly done according to letters of complaint received by Cunard. The biggest problem of course was time. Bodies had to be interred before they could become a health risk and it was impossible to either dig or even find the space in the cemetery for so many private graves. Cunard does appear to have organised it as well as they possibly could in the circumstances and given the fact that it was rural Ireland almost ninety years ago. Cunard undertook to maintain the graves - not a terribly difficult thing to do given that they are just grassed areas but that only applied to the mass graves, some of the private ones are in disrepair
and the one to Charles and Cora Yeatman has disappeared under years of brambles etc!
A new memorial to the crew has been put in the cemetery by the War Graves Commission, but it does look rather out of place.
Geoff
