Wednesday's Child: Darling Infant Son (and Family)

The Darling Infant Son of John Franklin and Lecy (White) Brothers is buried in the Brothers family plot with his parents and his father's first wife, Susan Tennessee Brothers.

Infant Brothers' obelisk is surprisingly ornate for an infant in this area. Obelisks for infants seem rare in Central Texas; most of the baby gravestones that I have seen in Bell County tend to be smaller, often engraved with a resting lamb or a dove, but less ornate than that of the Brothers baby.

The obelisk features a resting lamb, which is a fairly common motif for infant gravestones, but Darling Infant's lamb rests beneath a radiant star. The scene is reminiscent of the nativity, with the Lamb of God resting beneath the star.

John Franklin Brothers' first wife, Susan Tennessee, died in 1901.

J.F. and Lecy must have married by the end of 1902 (not an uncommon practice at the time), because their son was stillborn on September 7, 1903. Lecy would have been about twenty years old on her wedding day, and her husband would have been more than twice her age (also not uncommon at the time). J.F. preceded her in death in 1937, when he was buried beside his first wife and his son.

His gravestone is beautiful and interesting in its own right, a massive stone block rather than the slender obelisks of his infant son and first wife.

Lecy lived on until 1973, when she was laid to rest between her late husband and their son.

You're certainly welcome, Mr. Polk

Last weekend, my husband and I were out in our local cemetery trying to fill in some missing photographs on Find-A-Grave.

We were working in the older sections of the cemetery, so not many people were around; the couple of people who were at the cemetery so early on a Saturday morning were all visiting more recently deceased family members in the newer sections, so I wasn't too worried about having to answer questions about what we were doing there with our camera and our notebook.

Maybe there wouldn't be questions anyway, but I always worry. Maybe I just have a guilty conscience.

About midway through the morning, a family parked not far from our car and strolled into the section we were walking through. They paused at a family plot a couple of lots over, then one of the guys walked over toward where my husband and I were- Greg with his camera and floppy hat and I with my notebook and pen.

"Who are you looking for?" he asked conversationally. I shrugged and held up my notebook in a vaguely explanatory gesture and replied that we had a long list. He asked if I had any Polks on my list, and I apologetically explained that I was only as far along as A's and B's in this section.

That got a politely questioning look.

I was oddly reluctant to just say "I'm doing this for Find-A-Grave," because I tend to be sort of absurdly self-conscious about pretty much everything anyway, and I was afraid that someone out visiting deceased relatives who was unfamiliar with the site might somehow be offended or think we had no business being there, and I didn't want either odd looks or a confrontation. Like I said, I think it's a guilty conscience.

Instead, I stammered something like "Well, I'm a volunteer photographer- even though I'm making my husband take the pictures today- for this online grave database for genealogy researchers-" and nodded.

"Oh, I know that website," he said. As we talked a bit more before they left for the day, it turned out that his daughter had recommended Find-A-Grave to him as a resource. "It's helped me a lot with my own research. Thank y'all so much for your work."

I haven't really done much yet (though my husband was able to point out another plot of Polks to him), so I'm passing that along to any other Find-A-Grave volunteers who happen to read this.