Finding Mildred

In late December 1916, my great-grandparents had their first child, a daughter they named Mildred Jane. Less than two years later, she died.

We have so little of her.

A china doll, with delicate features and a green dress. A lock of golden hair, a color not unlike my mother's had been as a child, or mine, or the color Elaina's is now. A baby ring that is tiny, tiny, with tiny hearts printed on the band. And a yellowed slip of newspaper upon which her obituary was published.

Mildred Jane Copes, only child of Mr and Mrs Clinton Copes was born Dec 30 1916, and after four weeks of serious illness, died August 27, 1918 at their home 4 and 1/2 miles west of Vermont,  aged 1 year, 7 months and 28 days. [...]  Despite all the tender loving care that parents could give, despite medical skill, and the constant care of a competent nurse nothing could stay the ravages of the disease. With her bright eyes and pleasant smile, little Mildred was a lovable child; and while this bereavement is beyond our understanding it is not ours to question. Some day, some time we'll understand. [..]

There were no pictures, no memories, no stories to tell us who she had been. Just a doll, a lock of hair, a ring, and a newspaper clipping.

My grandpa was born in November 1919, a little more than a year after his sister died, and though his parents were disappointed he was not another girl, it seems they made a conscious effort to not make the same mistake twice. We have pictures of him as an infant, dressed in a white gown; the distinctive dimple on his chin that tells us the sweet baby in the picture is him. We have pictures of him as a toddler with ringlets curled into his hair, and pictures of him as a little boy, posed with his brother, Wendell. We have pictures of him as a child, barefooted on the farm, with cousins, with Wendell, with the family dog. We have pictures of him as a young man with his classmates, dressed in overalls and downcast eyes, and as a high school graduate with wavy hair (red, I am told) and a slight smile that hid his propensity to tease.

In fact, we have pictures that go much further back than my grandfather. There is one of Nettie and Clint, my grandfather's parents, on their wedding day in 1911. They are posed stoically, he, trim in a suit, and she, dressed in white with an impossibly tiny waist. There is one of Nettie and her sisters, Effie and Annie, standing behind their seated parents in front of the farmhouse. There is one of my great-great grandparents, Thomas and Amanda, in their later years. There is one of Nettie, who was born in 1881, as a little girl, maybe 3 or 4, with curls and light eyes. There are pictures of relatives long forgotten and twice removed. Among the others, there is even a tintype.

But of Mildred, there was nothing.

It is nearly incomprehensible in this age of selfies, newborn portraits, and 3-D sonograms that we have no way of seeing what she looked like, who she was. But in some ways, it is fitting. Mildred's legacy has always been her absence. She was the little girl lost, to her parents, to her brothers, to us.

Or so we thought.

Last week, Mom showed me some pictures that she, my aunt, and Grandma had been going through. Some I had seen before--Clint and Nettie's wedding picture, Grampa with Uncle Wendell as little boys. Among them, though, was one I hadn't seen before, of a sweet baby, around 9-12 months old, dressed in white. At first I thought it was a picture of Grandpa I hadn't seen before: the baby in the picture has the same tiny chin dimple that you can see in others we have of him. And then Mom called my attention to something I'd overlooked--the baby is wearing a necklace, and a ring. The same ring that sits on my dresser as a gift from my mother, tiny and gold with little hearts printed on the band.

Mildred's ring.

After nearly 100 years, our little girl lost has been found.