Finding Unknown Infants' Deaths

In my effort to confirm that I have been to the burial location of my great grandmother, Mary Elizabeth "Mayme" Sharp-Gardner, I found a hint for a death record for an 8 month old child of Mayme Gardner and Albert Gardner in Long Island City, Queens, New York on March 21, 1929. This would have been the younger sister of my grandfather, Clarence Albert "Whitey" Gardner; but I have never heard of her. 

May was born on July 4, 1928. Clarence was born on August 5, 1926. My grandpa would have only been about 23 months old when this sister was born and just over 2 1/2 years-old when she died. I am sure he had no recollection of her, even if he had been big on talking about family history. Did he even know he had a younger sister? He was a quiet man in that sense, never talked about the past. I suspect he lived a painful childhood but also, he seemed to me to be someone who lived in the present. And although others claim to have memories from their own infancy, I surely can't remember much before the birth of my sister when I was 3 1/2. Maybe he didn't know May existed.

My colleague Karen, who I recently coaxed into revisiting her family tree, shared the exact same experience with me today. She came across death records for infant children no one in her family knows about. Not surprising really; families don't generally talk about unpleasant memories and what can be worse than a child's death. I love my nieces so much I can't imagine what the death of an infant does to a family.

The 1900 and 1910 U.S. Federal Census records contain unique statistics regarding maternity. When this data was collected the census taker asked each adult woman how many times she had given birth to date and how many children were living. If you examine those two columns it is alarming how many women lost children. I have seen glaring difference; woman who gave birth to a dozen + children with only 1 living. This type of data does not exist for any other U.S. census records. 

It was through the comparison of those two censuses that I discovered a great-great grandmother had 3 deceased infants for whom I then found death records and visited their graves. That has prompted me to always search death indexes by a combination of parents names to see if other forgotten children show up in records. They often do but I certainly missed this one.

I wonder if my grandfather had more than two sisters now; his older sister Lois and this baby May. 

If I can't find Great Grandma Mayme's burial site I am going to find this infant Great Aunt May's grave, for sure. The record I have found indicates she is buried in Cedar Grove Cemetery. A quick call to them gave me her plot location; Block Forrest, Reference 9, Line 1, Grave 81B - whatever that means. I asked the very helpful woman on the phone, Natalie, if she could tell if the infant was buried with family or had a headstone - maybe Mayme is with her but I doubt it. It is also very unlikely she has a headstone, my family members rarely do. Natalie tried to answer my questions but couldn't tell from her database so, a trip to Cedar Grove Cemetery is now on my list.