AN Easter Sunday outing to mark her late father became an awful nightmare for Joanne Duffy.
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The daughter of bakery founder Joe Smart took a posy of daisies to Lavington's Foresters Grove to honour her father who died last May and was cremated.
She planned to lay them at a wall containing plaques of deceased members of the Lavington Lions Club but when she got there she found the memorial was gone.
"There was just sand where the wall used to be," Mrs Duffy said.
"I was devastated, I didn't think I would get upset, but I thought 'wow'.
"I went there to have lunch and give flowers and I thought 'what do we do?', it's not as if we've got a plaque at the cemetery."
In tears, Mrs Duffy phoned Albury mayor Kevin Mack and contacted management of the city council which administers the park.
She was told by the council's project officer Leanne Hunichen the wall had been removed for construction of a new playground at the park.
"I have the plaques in my office and they will be reattached prior to the opening of the park," Ms Hunichen stated in an email.
"They will be attached to a new seating wall which we are calling the 'reflection area' and will be closer to the pond and a much nicer atmosphere."
But Ms Duffy was concerned there was no mention of the wall on the council's outline of the project at the park and on its website.
She took her concerns to the council meeting on Wednesday night and received an apology for her distress from community and recreation group acting director Simona Coad.
"Through consultation with the Lions Club it was decided to build a wall of reflection, which is a quiet space in that area where the plaques will be restored," Ms Coad said.
IN OTHER NEWS:
Mrs Duffy said she was left confused by the responses and suspected there had been no plan for a new wall.
She told Cr Mack of her sorrow in an email.
"Now every Easter I'll just remember not being able to place Easter daisies near a plaque on the first Easter since my dad died," Mrs Duffy wrote.
She told The Border Mail that Easter had always been special to her because it was when she was engaged, married and had two daughters christened.
