Pages

04 June 2013

Baby/Child headstones

Do you ever wonder about the little children and babies in the graveyards? Sometimes, it is easy to figure out. Lots of tombstones within weeks and months of each other = sickness swept the community. Babies right next to, or included on their mother's tombstone. Died at or shortly after birth along with their mother. Sometimes, it is harder. One child with no others of that surname nearby. Was it a family passing through, only there for a few months or years? Did they die of an illness? An accident? Born too early to survive?

I have an ancestor who lost a 6 year old to scarlet fever. They left her behind when they moved further West to Montana. Another ancestor lost her baby shortly after traveling from England to America then overland 2000 miles to the Salt Lake Valley. What did they feel?

A friend of mine just lost a second child to an illness several years after she lost her very first child to the same illness. I know the story behind that child's tombstone. I have become acquainted with several other stories behind some more modern tombstones. It gives me an appreciation for the feelings that those early settlers, ancestors, and neighbors went through when they had to bury their children.