Compiled by Teresa
Martin Klaiber 2023
I
was asked why I am doing individual bio’s on the loved ones in Klaiber Cemetery
when they are also posted on Find-A-Grave and in several public databases. In genealogy, there is no such thing as to
much information. Databases are cut and dry and Find-A-Grave is not always
maintained by a cemetery trustee nor a person that grew up with these folks.
That said I have walked among these people for fifty-six years as a Klaiber and
grew up with many of them prior to that. It is the stories and their lives that
are important to me. As long as we remember them, they are still with us.
Baby
Klaiber is very personal to us, never forgotten and very loved. She will always be my husband’s “baby sister”
even though she was the eldest. She was
born to John Henry and Elsie Ellis Rucker Klaiber April 15, 1945 at St. Mary’s
in Huntington, Cabell County, West Virginia.
Elsie mourned her always and talked about her many times with me. The tiny infant was born with what today we
know as severe spinal bifida. In the 1940’s few survived any form of spinal
bifida. According to Elsie her sweet daughter lived less than an hour. Exhausted and needing care herself Elsie
never saw nor held her. It broke her
heart.
Spinal
bifida is caused by a lack of folic acid. The Klaiber’s kept a wonderful
garden, canned and the table was always full. Elsie would wonder if it was the
lack of fresh leafy vegetables during the winter months. Each time she shared her sadness she brought
out the tiny crochet bonnet that she kept that was to be for the baby. Sadly, I do not know who made it, but I
cherish it.
Elsie
recorded her birth and death in the family bible. She thought there was no official
record. Years later, determined to find
some sort of paper trail, I began to dig deeper into Cabell County, West
Virginia records. Over the years,
researching I became aware that many babies that were stillborn or lived for a
very short time only had one record, usually the death record. With a line by
line search, aware that Klaiber gets mis-spelled I found her death recorded in
Volume 6 page 7K of the Register of Deaths for Cabell County: “Klaibert –
female, stillborn, Huntington, single. Information proved by G. A. Ratcliff,
the attending physician.” The parent’s
names are not even listed. Simply put
she is listed as “Stillborn Klaibert.”
Each year a
dear neighbor puts flowers on John and Elsie’s headstone, on Memorial day, and leaves flowers for the baby as well. She is loved, she is remembered and I hope
our sons will keep their tiny aunt’s memory alive in years to come.
