{"id":176,"date":"2009-11-15T11:16:27","date_gmt":"2009-11-15T15:16:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mackinacblog.com\/?p=176"},"modified":"2011-06-21T00:09:48","modified_gmt":"2011-06-21T04:09:48","slug":"headstone-placed-at-fort-mackinac-infant%e2%80%99s-grave-117-years-after-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.mackinacblog.com\/?p=176","title":{"rendered":"Headstone Placed at Fort Mackinac Infant\u2019s Grave 117 Years After Death"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img src=\"http:\/\/www.mackinacparks.com\/userfiles\/image\/Media%20Press%20Release%20Photos\/Post%20Cemetery%20Gravestone%20Installation-11-17-2010\/Phil%20and%20RobertLR.jpg\" style=\"float:right; margin-left: 5px\" alt=\"\" width=\"250\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.mackinacparks.com\/media\/index.aspx?l=0,1,18,308,1028\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Via Mackinac State Historic Parks<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>At 10:00 this morning, November 17, 2010 at the  Post Cemetery on Mackinac Island, a headstone was placed at the  gravesite of infant Robert D. Walsh over 117 years after his death at  Fort Mackinac.\u00a0The stillborn son of Private Walter J. Walsh and his  wife, Fort Mackinac Hospital Matron Caroline Walsh, was buried at the  Post Cemetery on Mackinac Island after his death on August 17, 1892 at  Fort Mackinac.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBy properly marking this gravesite, we are able to honor the wishes of  the family and bring greater historical accuracy to this cemetery,\u201d said  Mackinac State Historic Parks Director Phil Porter.<\/p>\n<p>Until recently, the unmarked gravesite was thought to be a stillborn  daughter of the Walsh family, who died sometime between February and  September of 1892.\u00a0However, a letter from Walter and Caroline Walsh\u2019s  great-grandson, James Hudson of Lake City, Michigan, shed light on the  117-year-old mystery.\u00a0After reading <em>Mackinac Island\u2019s Post Cemetery<\/em>,  a vignette by Porter, which mentioned the Walsh baby\u2019s unmarked grave  in the Post Cemetery, Hudson searched for and found old documents given  to him by his mother, the granddaughter of Walter and Caroline  Walsh.\u00a0Written in Hudson\u2019s grandmother\u2019s writing was an entry for Robert  D. Walsh in the births and deaths sections of the family record, both  showing the date of August 17, 1892.<\/p>\n<p>Hudson wrote to Porter, \u201cMy wish is that a headstone, with a now known  name and date, be placed on the gravesite.\u00a0I feel this should be done  for the memory of this baby and for Walter J. Walsh, who was a Civil War  Veteran, retired with 30 years of honorable service in the army, and  for Caroline Walsh, who served as the Post\u2019s Hospital Matron.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The headstone was funded by the Department of Veterans Affairs, National  Cemetery Administration, which has provided guidance and financial  assistance to maintain the cemetery since 1990.\u00a0Because of this funding,  tribute has been paid to the small child who didn\u2019t have a chance at  life, but will now be forever remembered.<\/p>\n<p>In the future, Mackinac State Historic Parks hopes to continue to  install accurate headstones at other unmarked or improperly marked  gravesites within the Mackinac Island Post Cemetery.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.mackinacparks.com\/media\/index.aspx?l=0,1,18,308,1028\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>More Information at Mackinac State Historic Parks Website &gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Via Mackinac State Historic Parks\nAt 10:00 this morning, November 17, 2010 at the  Post Cemetery on Mackinac Island, a headstone was placed at the  gravesite of infant Robert D. Walsh over 117 years after his death at  Fort Mackinac.\u00a0The stillborn son of Private Walter J. Walsh and his  wife, Fort Mackinac [&#8230;]\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[28],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mackinacblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mackinacblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mackinacblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mackinacblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mackinacblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.mackinacblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mackinacblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mackinacblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mackinacblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}