This week I continued research on Greenwood Cemetery's babylands. Below is the fruit of my labors.
In the past several centuries until roughly the 1950s, infant mortality rate was incredibly high. It was not uncommon for many nations to have over a 50% infant mortality rate, with every other child dying in their youth.2The most prevalent causes of infant mortality have been infectious diseases such as smallpox, tuberculosis, diphtheria, scarlet fever and many more due to a failure of hygienic practices and little-to-no knowledge on how to prevent diseases. Luckily, beginning in the 1930s and continuing to the present day the majority have countries have seen great improvements in public health infrastructure such as sewage disposal, water treatment, food safety, and health education which have caused the infant mortality rate to plummet. In addition, the modern availability of mass vaccinations for both infants and adults has taken the global infant mortality rate from 27% in 1950 to 4% in 2020.
The horrid nature of infant mortality rates in the past saw a rise to cemetery sections known as ‘babylands’. Dedicated to children under the age of ten, many parents of children buried in babylands felt that their child’s soul would be most happy with other children their age. In Greenwood Cemetery, there exists three Babylands that developed separately from the main cemetery. Some babies buried in Greenwood Cemetery’s babylands died of disease and malnutrition, others were stillbirths.
One sorrowful example can be found in the birth of the Beach twins. On October 13, 1927, James Beach and Ethel Weeks gave birth to two stillborn twin daughters. They have since been buried in babyland B while their parents now rest in block 9 of Greenwood Cemetery.
Ramona Ann Burney was born on February 10, 1935, to Frank Burney and Ramona Satches. Sadly, Ramona caught primary bronchopneumonia, a type of pneumonia that inflames the alveoli inside the lungs and passed five months and twenty days later on July 30, 1935. Her grave is currently unmarked.
Benton David Glasscock Jr. was the infant son of Benton D Glasscock, a Captain in the Army Air Force, and Eva Nobringa, born on January 13, 1941.Benton was heartbreakingly born with fatal developmental issues in his circulation and respiratory failure and passed an hour and a half later that same day. Benton now nests in section G, lot 76 of Greenwood Cemetery and his parents are buried in Section C.
Some visitors claim to have witnessed some paranormal activity near Greenwood Cemetery’s babylands. Near Babylands 1 and 3 some visitors report hearing the sound of children laughing and playing, with some visitors feeling strange sensations like a tug on their pants. Greenwood Cemetery’s babylands offer a somber place for reflection and support for those who have lost a young loved one.
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