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Baby Land at Magnolia Park Cemetery (Flashback Friday)

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Back in the early 1950's my grandparents lost a set of twin girls shortly after their birth. Plots were purchased, and the twins were buried in Magnolia Park Cemetery at Warner Robins, Houston County, Georgia. One day, my grandparents will be laid to rest next to them.

For 50+ years my grandmother has tended the twins' grave, and there have been many times when Grandpa and I were with her. On more than one occasion, Pa would mention that the twins were buried not long before "they started baby land." He would always point in a general direction, but I never noticed any obvious special section for infants.

On a recent visit to Magnolia Park, I stumbled across this "baby land" section. It is located in the central section behind the oldest graves, which are behind the main sign for the cemetery. All the markers are tiny and flat, and there are quite a few. If you are not careful, you will be stepping on one before you know it. I'm sure there are even rows, but I believe some of the markers may already be lost for whatever reason (maybe some graves never had them). This is a very well maintained cemetery, but the markers I saw are in too much of a scattered pattern for me to think what we see today is all there ever were.

Here are a couple of photos of the types of markers found in "baby land."

Now I Lay me Down to Sleep
I Pray The Lord My Soul to Keep
Christopher Elkins
Nov 1, 1962 - Nov 2, 1962

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Anonymous said…
Very helpful, if shocking to me! A few years ago at my new job, my boss told me a story that I have regarded as a possible "initiation." He said there was an old story of a section of one of the city cemeteries here that had nothing but babies, and they'd been buried in the 1950s or so. He intimated that perhaps they'd all died of a mysterious disease or something. I did a little research and came up with nothing. Since I knew very well if anyone knew- sorry, but- well, where the bodies were buried- it would be him, so I, being very busy anyway, put it up to a snipe hunt. I wonder if it came from such a tradition, begun here but maybe not continued. We have an USAF base here, like WR, so we do have quite a mix of folks. Thank you for this post! Jeannie Weller Cooper, PC, FL (PS, my dad's parents, Ed and Mae Haigh were there in WR in the 1960s.
January 19, 2014 at 6:55 PM
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