The sad tale of a Lonely Rose Bush – The’ Heidenroslein’ of the Downs

‘Roslein, roslein, roslein rot, Roslein auf der Heide’

Photograph showing the lonely rose bush at Headington Hill – the young Elsie Nichterlein is buried beneath this rose bush.  Toowomba Centenarian Gladys Huf planted the rose bush in 1917!

Not all the stories related are humorous or have a happy ending. Gladys Huf who recently reached the grand age of 100 told me a sad story from Headington Hill, south of Toowoomba, where she grew up.

As with many ‘German’ families of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Australia (ELCA) congregations in the Headington Hill, Mt Kent and Greenwood areas, her family had moved from southwestern Victoria in search of fertile land. Headington Hill Station was being subdivided in the early 1900s, attracting the Lutheran enclaves from ‘down south’. Family names included Huf, Paech, Stehn, Noller, Kowald and Kessler.

Lacking a Pastor, the congregation called on Pastor Otto Nichterlein from western Victoria. He and his wife and a very young baby undertook the long and arduous trip to the Darling Downs. However soon after arriving with her mother for a golden wedding anniversary in 1917 young Elsie Nichterlein took ill and died. Heartbroken, the mother returned to the extended family in southwestern Victoria, and Pastor Nichterlein ministered in southern Queensland until he could return to Victoria.

The grave site is today a historical site, the special Frau Carl Duschke rose bush planted by Elsie’s young cousin Gladys Huf in 1917 still sheltering the grave of the baby girl.

Seventy six years later (in 1993) Gladys Huf returned to the grave site at Headington Hill to still find the rose bush flourishing!

Photo of Pastor Nichterlein in sulky outside Toowoomba City Hall. (photo taken either 1902 or 1903).