Minnie A.

Dau. of

Mary Livingston

1880 – 1884

That’s all of the words, but I see that the marble statue was meant to say the rest of it; the terrible sorrow of a mother’s loss, of course, but what else?

It is no great surprise that a four year old girl would tragically die in 1884 in a frontier mining town, certainly of some sudden and deadly illness. What more can we discern from these words and the dislocation of the head?Is the A. a middle initial, or a last initial? Is there not a father?

County records report the Feb. 10, 1984 death of one Mary Alberico, the birth of the same on Jan. 30, 1880, and the marriage of Martin Alberico and Mary Livingston on June 21, 1979; Mary evidently with child.

 Minnie awoke Feb. 8 with a high fever and as the day progressed her back progressively and painfully arched backwards. By evening of the 9^th no amount of holding and cool compresses had helped at all; Mary Sr. was in tears, Martin angry at his God. Morning of the 10^th they had a fight: Martin insisted, “We’ve got to take her in the wagon to the town and  the doctor.” Mary cried even more, “She needs to stay here, with me, in her home. I can make her well.”

Martin won the argument by force, and Minnie gave up the ghost half way to town. Mary got her way with the monument and its words; you can guess who whopped off the head and then placed it just there—penance, too late.

“And grief at long hard last breaks a way for the voice.” Virgil