Compiled by Teresa Martin Klaiber 2023
The
little ones in any cemetery usually have a lamb or tiny angel figure guarding
over them. When we took over care of Klaiber Cemetery in 1995 I was aware that
there were unmarked graves. In 1997 I
received a telephone call from Thelma “Oley” Bocook Hunt asking if she could
visit the cemetery and talk to me about placing a stone in the cemetery.
The
story she told warmed my heart. She was
the daughter of Martha Helen Sexton and John Samuel Bocook. She was one of fourteen children born to
the Bocooks. She explained that she was
born in April (22 April 1910) and her brother (born January 1908) died in
December 1910 when she was just five months old.
The
family visited the grave of baby Robert Sanford Bocook many times over the
years and each time her mother wished there was a marker. Thelma said that before her mother died in
1958[i]
she promised she would place a stone over his grave. Time has a way of getting away from all of us
and at eighty-seven years of age Thelma needed to keep her promise to her
mother.
Of
course I was very pleased to be able to identify one of the unmarked
graves. Thelma ordered a lovely marker
complete with a praying angel to guard over her brother.
John
Samuel Bocook[ii]
and Martha Helen Sexton were married on Garner, Boyd County, Kentucky 28 March
1905. The 1910 Federal Census was taken in April, the month of Thelma’s birth
and while it does not show her as a child, Sanford along with older brother
Delbert[iii]
do appear, all living on Winding Avenue in Catlettsburg, Boyd County, Kentucky.
Thelma
kept her long standing promise to her mother Martha Helen Sexton Bocook. Thelma
died 6 September 1998 and was laid to rest in Catlettsburg Cemetery beside her
husband Chester Hunt.
This
tiny stone is a reminder that while we are gone we are not forgotten. We live on in the hearts of others.
[i]
Oh, Scioto D Cert 13069 burial Vernon Cemetery, Scioto, OH
[ii] D Portsmouth, Scioto County buried in
Catlettsburg Cemetery
[iii]
Delbert Bocook died in 1984 Cabell Co., WV and is buried in Catlettsburg
Cemetery
