The Mystery Child

 

Charles City Intelligencer - 3 Aug 1876

This article written just weeks after the 100th birthday of the United States has really thrown me for a loop. It states that a baby boy was born on July 28th. The problem is that I don't have a child born at that time. At the family plot, there is a central marker, three larger stones for John Kuck and his first two wives on either side of him, next to five smaller stones for each of the five children that died of diphtheria, a total of eight markers altogether. The two that survived are buried in nearby Rockford and out in The Dalles, Oregon which I saw for my own eyes last fall. You can see them all below.

At some point after I first visited the graves, I noticed something about the stone obelisk marker. It had nine etchings memorializing the dead. One was for an infant whom I hadn't known about. You can see that side of the marker below. It was in pretty rough shape the first time I visited but I thought it said Infant Daughter born May 31, 1877.  At least that is what I wrote down in my records at the time.  While the last digit of the year is hard to decipher and open for interpretation, May 31 is pretty clear cut and certain doesn't mesh at all with the July 28th date listed in the newspaper article. I have also scanned the newspaper for a couple months after the birth of the "bicentennial boy" and saw no mention of a death.

To "clarify" things, I called the cemetery office and requested a copy of their records which listed an ninth person buried in the family plot, an infant, but whom died on 31 May 1879. At least May 31 jives with the obelisk but if you are keeping count, I have 1876 (newspaper), 1877 (gravestone) and 1879 (cemetery records) for a possible year. Also, the newspaper says boy, the marker said daughter and the record doesn't state one way or the other. 

Focusing on the last date thus far, 31 May 1879, that is a day of importance in this family's life. It is the day Mary Kuck died of paralytic convulsions (perhaps tetanus). I have two death notices for Mary, one I found and one a research many years ago found from a different newspaper and mailed to me. Neither of them mention an eight child or an infant. 

So how do I process this all. I'm not sure there is a way to prove anything other than just speculation. Birth records weren't kept at the time. Church records might list something but I've searched for those for years and haven't been able to track them down, assuming they even exist anymore. I think sometime in the 1950's a huge tornado tore through town destroying the Kuck house and their church, reducing both to rubble. 

Speculation number one: Perhaps Mary died of paralytic convulsions while pregnant with the last child. That might explain why there is no marker for the child and why the date on the cemetery record matches the date of Mary's death. 

Speculation number two: The cemetery record just may be flat out wrong. It was obviously created well after the fact and probably typed from hand written records. It was printed out for me in 2005. Perhaps the person entering it also mistakenly typed in the May 31 part by merging it with Mary's record.

Speculation number three: The newspaper article or etching on the obelisk is wrong about the gender. My money would be that the newspaper gender is wrong and that actually a girl was born and not a boy back on 28 Jul 1877, but just due to the cycle of the news, the date must surely be accurate. So why doesn't that mesh with the date on the obelisk? I have a receipt shown below from the court filings after John's death for the "finishing marker and description" and the cost deducted from the estate before it was divided up in 1918. Perhaps part of that updating, included his name along with infant's death date which could very well have been confused with Mary's 31 May death date. The last digit of the year is very hard to read and could very well be a six which would match the newspaper article except for the gender.

Speculation number four: There were two children who died at birth, a boy and a girl. 

Speculation number five: There was a child born in 1876 that died in 1879 but was never named and still considered an infant by those around it. 

Of all these, I suspect the third speculation is probably the closest to the truth but I certainly wouldn't place odds on it being the right one. I have found that after one dies, the burden of getting dates correct lies with the children and in John's case, the two who would have been present at the birth were both male and the date wasn't a memorable part of their lives. The monument now is completely taken over by fungus and is impossible to read anymore. I have had thoughts of cleaning it off, but from what I have researched, it would be a multiday process to do so and not harm the marble. Even if I did and it was perfectly legible, based upon the receipt above, stating unknown parts of it were completed after the only person who cared enough to remember was dead, I'm not sure it would change my mind one way or another. It will just be another mystery in a long line of them that I have found in my family tree.