The Loss of a Child

There are many children's graves in the Round Rock Cemetery. Losing a child or two was to be expected in most families before the availability of antibiotics. I wish I could find the sad little series of graves I found so many years ago. I think there were four babies' graves, and the last headstone was for mother and baby, both. I need a cool, dry day to find them, though. It's a large cemetery and it has been a very long time since I saw them. 25 years, maybe.

These stones caught my eye--the twins that died three weeks apart. I can imagine the desperation of the parents, trying to keep the second one alive. I wonder what killed them. Could have been anything, I suppose--measles, typhoid, cholera, flu. Being twins, they were probably small at birth, and maybe premature, as well. Poor little things. And the stone that has hand incised, "Baby" with a surname. Died without ever having a name. The little fallen stone belongs to the grave of a child who lived about a year.

So very sad.