Local History

Sometimes History Can Be Quite Sad

These statutes are in a local

cemetery, they mark the graves

of these two children, 16 year old,

Charles and 6 year old, Gertrude.

Their grief stricken parents

couldn't bear the thought

that their children might be

forgotten.

The parents commissioned

a scultptor in Florence, Italy

to make these life sized replicas.

People decorate the statues seasonally.

The Father, Dr. Hilligoss,

a local physician, became the

first president of Camp Chesterfield,

a Spiritualist camp founded in 1886.

Their tombstone reads:

We know that life is all the

sweeter that they lived.

And death is all the brighter

that they died.

I pass this cemetery very often

and always glance over to the

statues.  It is my way of

fulfilling the wish of the parents,

they haven't been forgotten.