St. Ambrose Cemetery, Seymour, Indiana

JOHN CLAIR MALONE

BORN OCT 10, 1890

DIED FEB 16, 1894

 [This gravestone has a girl resting against a pillow carved on the front of the gravestone but the gravestone marks the grave of four-year old John Clair Malone.  His name and birth and death dates appear on a scroll on the back of the memorial.]

St. Ambrose Cemetery, Seymour, Indiana

JOHN FRANCIS

SON OF J. W. & M. J. WILSON

BORN JAN. 27, 1899

DIED SEPT. 1, 1900

Those little hands thoult raise no more.

To meet my loving fond caress

For deaths cold blast in passing o’er

Has snatched thee from affections breasts.

 [The epitaph appears on the back of the gravestone.]

St. Ambrose Cemetery, Seymour, Indiana

PEARL M.

INFANT DAUGHTER OF

H. & L. NIGHTER

BORN JULY 4, 1896

DIED JULY 26, 1896

[This gravestone has an epitaph on its backside but is faint.]

The most poignant and tender gravestones are those for children.  Mortality rates for children were very high.  In the 1850s, for example, the mortality rates for children under one year were estimated at over 200 deaths per thousand, with much higher mortality rates for children under 5.

All three of these children are buried in the St. Ambrose Church Cemetery at Seymour, Indiana. Each child was under the age of five–they ranged in age  between 20 days old and four years old.

Each gravestone shows a sleeping child.  It has too be more comforting to think of a young child sleeping rather than the alternative.  The sentiment is tender and sad.