I have shared before Br'er's obsession with linking infants' Find A Grave memorials to their parents. When he comes across an infant effectively orphaned in the records, he drives himself (further) insane trying to find the parents and link them all together.
So, when someone clued him in on an unmarked infant's grave in an abandoned family cemetery in a wooded rural area, he was off and running. Or hopping. Or scampering.
The grave is only recorded because the cemetery is named on the infant's death certificate, and someone researching the family found it and created a Find A Grave memorial for the child.
In a quirk, the father was linked. But no mother. At least her name is on the child's death certificate, perhaps she could be found. As it turned out, she could. Just not easily or directly. And the whole story left Ol' Br'er a little stunned, awed, and more than a little depressed.
To roll back to the beginning: The infant was born in January 1936. She lived a mere three months to the day, dying in March from, basically, influenza. Her father followed her to the grave just short of two years later, in November of 1937. That alone was tragic enough.
Pulling together the rest of the family information revealed that she had a younger sister, born in late March 1937.
But what about the mother?
Well, it took a bit more sleuthing to find her. She had already married again by 1940, though no marriage record showed in searches. Her new surname only came up because she was living with her parents in 1950. Knowing the name allowed her to be found back in the 1940 Census living with her new husband. That meant that she had to have married him less than two years after the death of her first husband.
At that point, her story came into stark focus. And Ol' Br'er was reminded of having a tough row to how.
This woman was born in 1917. She was married by the time she was 18 years old (maybe 17 years old). And before she was 19, she had given birth to and lost a child. Before she was 21 years old, she had given birth to a second daughter (who survived and lived a long life!) and had been widowed.
Imagine for a moment being a widowed mother of an 8-month-old child in the rural south at the height of the Great Depression. Talk about a tough situation! A person could be forgiven for questioning her motives for marrying her second husband. It would not be unimaginable for someone in her situation to marry simply for some measure of security. Ol' Br'er wants to think it was a marriage of mutual affection rather than convenience. And, considering that it produced several children, it probably was. Or at least it became one over time.
Yes, she definitely had a tough row to hoe. Her life in comparison to most of ours definitely makes our complaints look like first-world problems.
Ol' Br'er is left wondering why she never had her first child's grave marked, even in later years. She was not the first to leave a child's grave unmarked, nor will she be the last. And, if she somehow forgot that child or where it was laid to rest, well, she would not be the first parent to do that either, whether it be due to trauma, time, or failing memory.
More's the pity.
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