Mabel was lost. The problem was, that after her brief life, nobody today knew about her and so no-one had been looking for her.
She was born in 1902 and died aged 5 months. Her parents carried on with their lives and didn’t talk much about her. Not for any particular reason, but just because that was the norm in the early 1900s. Her parents went on to have more children, but she was their first and probably her later siblings weren’t aware of her short life.
That is how it remained until, in 2024, a family member noticed her name among the burial entries that the Friends of the cemetery had put on Find A Grave. The notes we have added to the entries made them realise that she was part of their family. So, on Saturday, her niece came to the cemetery to ask if we could show her Mabel’s grave. She had an area and grave number from Find A Grave, but even so it took a lot of searching in the long grass to locate her, as there are so few stones still standing in that area to use as a guide. Finally, after a half-hour search, we located her grave and were able at least to cut the grass and make the grave a little tidier.
The family may now plant some bulbs on her grave and put up a memorial for her. Another delighted family and a success for the Friends.
