In St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 in New Orleans, final resting place of voodoo queen Marie Laveaux, there’s a child’s grave with a lovely statue of an angel sitting atop it. It reads simply, “Larry. 1947-1949”
I can’t find any information online about this Larry kid, although I have admittedly not probed very deeply into it.
His parents must have loved him a great deal, to have constructed this lovely monument to him. Either that or they were rich. Perhaps both.
As time went on, of course, they passed on as well, but in the interim, I wonder how many times his mother visited his grave. I wonder if Larry’s death broke her heart and changed her for the rest of her days. I wonder if Dad started drinking. Did Larry have siblings that are still alive today?
And what happened to Larry, anyway?
Was it pneumonia? Tuberculosis? Was he murdered? Doesn’t matter much, now, I guess.
This child was everything to someone in 1949, though. America was just beginning to prosper again after a long, resource-draining war that had left staggering numbers of women widows and children orphans. There were jobs, this television thing was really taking off, they shot a monkey into space, and President Truman began serving his second term. And Larry died.
Patrick Walts 