Account by Cornelia Cesari, June 2021:
During my research for the Baker Island book, I discovered an interview with Leona Gilley Sawyer, the last baby to be born on the island. She was the daughter of Sam B and Harriet, granddaughter of Elisha and Hannah, great granddaughter of William and Hannah.
In 1884, her parents had a baby boy, Victor, who died as an infant. In 1890, Leona was born on the island. These were Sam and Hat’s only recorded children, after the previous two generations of nearly a dozen siblings in several families.
In the interview, however, with poor audio on an old cassette tape, I thought she said that she had a twin sister who died at birth. Family members I talked with were unaware of this.
After that, though, I began paying special attention to Victor’s gravesite. With the white flowers I usually planted, I added pink ones, off to the right where I thought a baby sister might have been buried, had she existed and died on Baker.
On June 21st, I was planting a pink astilbe to the right of Victor’s stone. I wanted to go farther to the right as in my mind it is a sort of double plot. But I kept hitting stone, as one does on Baker Island. Stone, stone, stone. Suddenly I realized it was shallow, solid, and continuous. Heart in my throat, I looked for a straight edge and found one! A few inches of sod covered a small headstone. I found the edge of it and stopped digging.
I sat down in the grass, a bit overcome. Then I returned to the schoolhouse and began calling Leona’s grandchildren. When I reached her grandson and his wife, they gave their blessing (and began notifying family members).
The next morning, all five living souls on Baker Island gathered to honor a newly discovered soul in the cemetery.
I was hoping for a name, but there wasn’t one, just “INFANT DAU of Samuel B. and Hattie M. Gilley” with the same birthdate as Leona Gilley Sawyer: October 30, 1890.
Leona lived a long life marked by one tragedy after another, starting with the day of her birth. She loved growing up on Baker Island but was never able to move back.
I keep wondering what might have been different had her twin sister and her older brother survived.
Unfortunately, the headstone suffered damage during its decades of freezing and thawing under the damp sod. In its place is a temporary marker, while Leona's granddaughter works on restoring the original headstone.
(Of note, the broken headstone of Charles Gilley will also be repaired shortly!)
During my research for the Baker Island book, I discovered an interview with Leona Gilley Sawyer, the last baby to be born on the island. She was the daughter of Sam B and Harriet, granddaughter of Elisha and Hannah, great granddaughter of William and Hannah.
In 1884, her parents had a baby boy, Victor, who died as an infant. In 1890, Leona was born on the island. These were Sam and Hat’s only recorded children, after the previous two generations of nearly a dozen siblings in several families.
In the interview, however, with poor audio on an old cassette tape, I thought she said that she had a twin sister who died at birth. Family members I talked with were unaware of this.
After that, though, I began paying special attention to Victor’s gravesite. With the white flowers I usually planted, I added pink ones, off to the right where I thought a baby sister might have been buried, had she existed and died on Baker.
On June 21st, I was planting a pink astilbe to the right of Victor’s stone. I wanted to go farther to the right as in my mind it is a sort of double plot. But I kept hitting stone, as one does on Baker Island. Stone, stone, stone. Suddenly I realized it was shallow, solid, and continuous. Heart in my throat, I looked for a straight edge and found one! A few inches of sod covered a small headstone. I found the edge of it and stopped digging.
I sat down in the grass, a bit overcome. Then I returned to the schoolhouse and began calling Leona’s grandchildren. When I reached her grandson and his wife, they gave their blessing (and began notifying family members).
The next morning, all five living souls on Baker Island gathered to honor a newly discovered soul in the cemetery.
I was hoping for a name, but there wasn’t one, just “INFANT DAU of Samuel B. and Hattie M. Gilley” with the same birthdate as Leona Gilley Sawyer: October 30, 1890.
Leona lived a long life marked by one tragedy after another, starting with the day of her birth. She loved growing up on Baker Island but was never able to move back.
I keep wondering what might have been different had her twin sister and her older brother survived.
Unfortunately, the headstone suffered damage during its decades of freezing and thawing under the damp sod. In its place is a temporary marker, while Leona's granddaughter works on restoring the original headstone.
(Of note, the broken headstone of Charles Gilley will also be repaired shortly!)
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