Someone's Baby

A sketch of a mother holder her baby by Harrison Weir (1824-1906)

“Are you even a historian, if you haven’t broken down in tears over a story you find in the archives?” This was a dark joke often shared by my fellow historians and history students, but until I did local history and property research, I didn’t relate. 

Of course I had been moved to tears by historical movies and lectures from my favorite professors. And there are stories that always strike a chord in my soul, such as Col. Robert Gould Shaw and his 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, immortalized in the movie Glory (1989). After college, I went straight into teaching, leaving the archives behind. After a few years, I got into genealogy after studying my family history, and of course I started ghost hunting for fun. Due to this, I dusted off my research skills to discover the hidden stories of people’s past.

This week, I started preliminary digital research on a building at an undisclosed location. For privacy reasons, I won’t reveal what the research was for, but one thing they requested was to find out the history behind names etched on a glass window pane. On the second story of this building, there is a window pane with Carrie Barrett Aug 1 1885 and Alf Glascock Aug 1 1885 inscribed. Rumor had it that these two were lovers who signed their names into the glass, but after research, a different story emerged. 

Using Ancestry, I found Alf Glascock. Through his information and FindAGrave, I discovered that “Carrie” or Caroline was 6 and “Alf” or Alfred was 4 years old when the inscription was made. Their mothers were sisters making Caroline and Alf first cousins. Alfred’s father died before he was born, and it appears his mother stayed with her sister. Since they were so close in age, Caroline and Alfred were most likely raised together, and the signatures are an endearing reminder that they were once raised there. I thought back to my visit in the small room, and now it made more sense that it would be a nursery or play/learning area in the home. 

Caroline married Charles Kennedy and moved to South Dakota, but it was Alfred’s story that stood out to me. Alfred’s mother, Harriet died four years after the names were scratched into the glass, leaving Alfred an orphan. Alfred became a doctor for a military hospital in Washington, D.C. In May of 1918, Alfred resigned as a doctor and enlisted in the United States Army, over a year after the United States entered WWI. He was made Army Captain, and shipped to France in September. Unfortunately, Alfred developed pneumonia and died October 8, 1918, only a month before the Armistice. While unknown, it is possible that Alfred contracted Spanish Flu. Spanish Flu often caused the afflicted to develop Bacterial Pneumonia. In 1920, he was reinterred at Arlington Cemetery. 

Captain Alfred Glascock's gravestone at Arlington National Cemetery. Courtesy of FindaGrave.

A phrase I remember reading popped into my head. “They were all someone’s baby once.” An image of a recently widowed mother soothing her fussy baby in that room popped in my head. I imagined him playing with his cousin, and their mothers, two sisters at the window, carving each child’s names into the pane of glass. Then an image of him lying dead on a hospital cot somewhere in Mesves-sur-Loire, France.

It may seem silly, but I teared up. It’s easy to reduce history to dates and data points.  We can list the numbers of soldiers sent on any given battle, complete with casualties. I know many history teachers and historians who can recite the start and end dates of every United States Presidents’ terms. Too often we forget the most important part of history: The Human Element. Alfred Glascock was someone’s baby. More specifically he was Harriet Fadely Glascock’s baby. 

I have other stories that stay with me, such as a memoir of a child recalling their father weeping at a Union Soldier’s feet, pleading with them to not throw their recently deceased baby sibling’s clothes on the ground and ransacking the house. Or a family who never recovered after their son Jack, aged 6, died suddenly of appendicitis in the early 1900’s, and lovingly kept his toys and ribbons, still treasured by the descendants today. I think of Jack every day. 

I think the lesson here is simple. Everyone was someone’s baby at some point, no matter how old, important, or seemingly unimportant we are. And we could all stand to be a little kinder to each other.