Baby, Unidentified Since 1945, Gets A HeadstoneNORTH WEBSTER – An unknown infant buried in an unmarked grave in North Webster Cemetery is finally memorialized with a grave stone after 73 years thanks to the efforts of patrons of North Webster Community Public Library, local businesses and concerned citizens.
On June 20, 1945, the badly decomposed body of a full-term baby was found in a channel of Lake Wawasee by two small boys. Although the rate of decomposition made it impossible to determine the child’s gender, then-Kosciusko County Coroner Dr. Leslie Laird ruled the death a possible homicide.
A criminal investigation was started, but the parents or perpetuators were never found. The baby was unceremoniously buried in an unmarked grave in North Webster Cemetery.
The grave was discovered by Beth Smith, director of North Webster Library’s Local History and Genealogy Center, while transcribing old funeral home records. Further research discovered an old newspaper article about the crime and a death certificate.
“We are transcribing some old funeral home records, and as we were transcribing I found this ‘infant Doe’ in 1945,” Smith said. “Right away, as a genealogist, my mind was racing. ‘What’s this? What’s going on here?’
“So I did a little follow-up digging, and found some articles in the Times-Union about this baby that was found in a channel by two boys going fishing. The boys pulled the baby out and brought it to North Webster.”
Wanting the story of this child told, Smith featured the unmarked grave at the library’s annual Cemetery Walk in September 2017.
“They buried the child here in Webster, sent the bill to Turkey Creek Township,” Smith said.
“When I looked up the death certificate, it listed the cause of death as ‘possible homicide.’ I thought, ‘Well, yeah, ya think? Who goes home without their baby accidently?’
“When it said in the newspaper that they buried the child here, it was with no clergy, it was with no marker, and that just kind of squeezed my heart.”
Moved by the story, the Glean Team, a group of genealogists that meets weekly at North Webster Library, spearheaded a drive to raise funds to purchase and erect a grave stone memorializing the infant. Donations came from Glean Team members, library patrons and concerned citizens.
“As part of the Cemetery Walk, I took people over to an empty space, and I had a little butterfly chime and a teddy bear. We talked about this child, and then we had 20 seconds of silence,” Smith said. “My director said, ‘You’re not really going to do this, are you?’ But there are things like this in the cemetery that people need to be made aware of.
“After I did this, a lady from Michigan came in and asked if we ever thought of trying to get a stone placed for this child. I told her I had, but I was really busy. After she went home, she wrote a really nice letter thanking us for the cemetery walk, and enclosed a $25 check as the first donation toward getting that child a tombstone.
“So then I felt obligated, and now I have to follow through.”
Richard Owen, of Owen Family Funeral Home, provided the grave stone at cost while Ace Hardware of North Webster donated the materials for the base. Smith and her husband, Stuart, installed it.
Completed in time for the library’s 2018 Cemetery Walk on Sept. 9, the child was once again remembered as visitors stopped by the grave to pay their respects.
“I had never heard of something like this, and it definitely did touch me,” Owen said. “I felt like that baby should be marked somehow; that it existed, and apparently its name is only known to God.
“I’m glad we were able to do that.”
Times-Union writer Mark Howe contributed to this report.
