A Little Grave, Lost and Found

I mentioned earlier a child born to Henry and Mary Nolte, whose name I didn't know, whose grave marker I couldn't find, who I knew had existed only because I found a newspaper notice of its burial in January 1897.

The Northwest Indiana Genealogical Society has a list of names read from grave markers in many Ross Township cemeteries, including Chester Cemetery. I believe that list was based on readings compiled by the D.A.R. in the 1950s; it was also updated in the early 1990s. The stones were probably in better shape then and those earlier readers could decipher things on them that I can't now, so it's an indispensable resource and provided the basis for my own the slightly more detailed list. But it did not include a Nolte child who died in 1897.

Now that the snow's gone and I've been able to go back and search Chester Cemetery, I've finally found the baby's grave marker — by simply looking on the back of the other Nolte baby's marker. You can't blame the earlier readers for not thinking to do that. I certainly didn't think of it the first time I looked around in Chester Cemetery.

I'll have to update my Chester Cemetery list to include that little overlooked grave.

So here is baby Otto's grave marker …


(Click on images to enlarge)

… engraved on the back of his brother William's marker …



… both under the lilac hedge in Chester Cemetery.