Horace, This will take some reading - please bear with me.
When I was just out of college, I ran with a bunch of guys and gals from Comer and Sylacauga High. There was Badie Black, Averette Penick, Jimmy Lee Smith, Jimmy Holmes (the younger one), Belle Turner, Doug Murphee (Now a Sylacauga City Councilman) and some others I can't remember their names.

I was going to take them to the Cemetery to see the UNKNOWN INFANT's Grave at Dusk. I told them that the Grave would emit Smoke and we could see it if we got there just before dark.

During the day - since we lived in Sunnybrook - I went up to the path leading to the grave and brought a white bed sheet and buried it in some leaves. I, then threw a small rope across a tree limb and tied one end to the bed sheet - so when we walked to the Grave, I could be the last in line and pull the rope and make the bed sheet come across the path like a Ghost.

Badie Black was with us and unbeknownst to us, he had a small .22 pistol with him. Well, I pulled the rope - remember, it was almost dark - and the bed sheet came across the path and wrapped Badie Black up like it had attacked him.

Badie started screaming and shouting, "We're all gonna die" and pulled his pistol out of his pocket and waved it in the air but couldn't get the gun to shoot.

He has never forgiven me to this day. A true, true, true story

I have a theory..only a theory about the mystery of the "Unknown Infant:

1. You have an idea now that the infant was buried before 1942...might have been in the 1920's or 1930's.

2. Fact is many graves at those times did not have bought markers,only stones from the fields marked the grave with no name.

3. After some years passed,the stones may be removed..but,someone remembered that an infant was buried there...imprint of the grave surface may have been visible. They did not know the sex of the baby.

4. Some one bought a marker or made on and placed it there out of concern.

5. The sex of the infant was not know. If someone had found the baby's body,I think it's sex would have been known.

6. Lathan's childhood antics give us another clue. Through the years folks have talked,wondered,gossiped or played pranks about the grave.

7. The mystery grew and grew with the years. Like smoke from the shell and lion-like animals chasinig people.

It is a wonderful story and I favor leaving it in tack and not know the real meaning of the mystery.

It really tugs at my heart knowing that this child, an innocent little baby, not wanted by anyone, thrown away by its Mother, torn apart by dogs, and buried in a shoebox, is still remembered after all these years !! Just goes to show you that, regardless of how insignificant one might believe themselves to be, every little life has value.

KC

Seriously,if you enjoy stories like this..revisit
"LEDGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW".

No, I don't enjoy stories like that !! I just think it is a sweet testement to one little life, that was so unimportant at the time, but whose memory has endured through the years, and more than likely, has outlasted the memory of those involved.

KC

KC,
Yours was/is one of the sweetest sentiments ever posted on this forum - Blessings to and for you

Thanks KC...see you in July? Hope so.

Horace