Postscript
As I mentioned in the introduction, I never knew Charles or Catherine. In fact I never met any of their offspring, except for Charlie Frank and, of course, my grandfather Harley Umberfield Garrett. Yet, I do feel a closeness to Charles Robert given his service in the Civil War and his residing in Macksburg, Iowa, at the end of his life. I have visited that community many times and its cemetery—Moon Cemetery—is very familiar to me.
I wrote the following free verse poem on reflecting on the family of Charles and Catherine Garrett, particularly Stella May described as a pretty little blond-headed child.
Unremembered in the Heartland of Iowa
I read the name I had read before;
Stella, who died at age 4 in 1876
Out in the heartland of Iowa
And buried in a now abandoned cemetery.
She was not the oldest or the youngest in her family,
But she was the first of the children to die
Out in the heartland of Iowa
And to lie buried in an abandoned cemetery.
Her parents must have mourned their loss,
Her siblings, too young to remember her death
Where out in the heartland of Iowa
She lay buried in an abandoned cemetery.
The other children had children and moved on.
Only the parents could be the memory keepers of Stella
Where out in the heartland of Iowa
She lay buried in an abandoned cemetery.
Robert and Catherine became grandparents and more
Having nothing but fading memories of Stella
Where out in the heartland of Iowa
She lay buried in an abandoned cemetery.
But the parents died, too, passing into the lingering memory
Of children and friends who lived for a while longer.
But Stella could not be remembered anymore by anyone;
She became the first of the unremembered in her family
Out in the heartland of Iowa
Now unremembered in an abandoned cemetery.
I read the name I had read before;
Stella, who died at age 4 in 1876.
But reading a name is not the same as remembering.
I can’t remember what I never knew of those
Who out in the heartland of Iowa
Lie buried in an abandoned cemetery.
I wonder how long
Before I become unremembered, too,
Like Stella
Out in the heartland
Of Iowa?
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