- In 2004 three generations of the Uechtritz family travelled from all over Australia on a pilgrimage to remote PNG to finally lay to rest the remains of their legendary ancestor, a woman called Phebe Parkinson.
- In 2004, three generations of the Uechtritz family travelled from all over Australia on a pilgrimage to remote PNG to finally lay to rest the remains of their legendary ancestor, a woman called Phebe Parkinson. They were joined at the ceremony by PNG tribesmen who still revere her memory, the PNG Foreign Minister Sir Rabbie Namaliu and by a journalist from Danish television who was pursuing an unexpected connection between Phebe Parkinson and the Danish Royal family. Phebe's wish to be buried beside her beloved anthropologist husband, Richard, was denied for 60 years while she lay undiscovered in an unmarked rainforest grave. But two years ago, the grave was located through a chance encounter between a family member and a local clansman. Only some jewellery and some slivers of bone remained but it was enough to confirm her identity. Phebe had died in a Japanese prisoner of war camp during World War II after being arrested for going to the rescue of three allied airmen whose plane had crashed. In January, her devoted grandson Alf, 77, was finally able to fulfil her last wishes as he led the emotional family expedition of 30 to reclaim her and place her to rest next to her husband. As Phebe's story unfolds, we learn that she was the daughter of a Samoan princess and the sister of the famous "Queen Emma of the South Seas" immortalised in a 1980s feature film and in the works of anthropologist Margaret Mead. Phebe's husband, Richard Parkinson, had royal ties of his own. Born in 1844, he was the illegitimate son of the second in line to the Danish throne. Together they established a trading empire which changed the face of history in PNG...—Australian Story
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