Marble Immortality
Shanna Riley February 6th, 2008
Displayed prominently in Baton Rouge's historic Magnolia Cemetery is the grave marker and memorial to the young children of William H. and Mary E. Crenshaw.
It is a marker that nearly every local knows of - the approximately eight-foot tall statue bearing the likeness of the three deceased children stays in your mind forever after viewing it.
The grave marks the final resting place, and is a memorial to, nine year-old Fanny, seven year-old Willie, and eighteen month-old Mattie Crenshaw who perished in 1858. Also interred and memorialized here is an infant listed only as The Nameless One, who died in 1855.
It is obvious - by their closely followed deaths - that illness played a part in the children's demise. The most likely assumption would be yellow fever; records indicate that New Orleans, in particular, was hit hard by the disease in 1858. It is probable that other areas of Louisiana, especially the City of Baton Rouge, would also have suffered from the epidemic.
The first to die was the eldest daughter, Fanny, on June 5. She was followed only three days later by her younger brother, Willie, on June 8. Little Mattie survived three more months, succumbing on October 13.
My research shows the children's father was a man of some prominence in the local community as pastor of the Baton Rouge Methodist Church, or First Methodist Church. I was also able to find that the unlucky parents, Reverend William H. Crenshaw and Mary E. Gayle, were married in Baton Rouge, East Baton Rouge Parish, on September 5, 1846. Mary was the daughter of John Gayle, who - in 1850 - was listed as being the parish treasurer.
While death due to such illness, and even the loss of a number of young children from one family was, unfortunately, not so uncommon in the mid- to late-1800s, the marker erected for the Crenshaw children is, undoubtedly, unique. Its size alone causes it to stand out from nearly every other headstone in this old cemetery, while the life-sized, marble statues carved in the likenesses of the late children is, all at once, stirring, chilling, beautiful, and morose. It is one of those markers that - once beheld - is never forgotten. What more fitting way to make sure your children live on forever?
- The Dead
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