If you enjoy genealogy, you know that even if there are no strange or interesting stories in your family tree, there are many such stories in the family trees of others. I enjoy a good genealogy story as much as anyone, and I was very intrigued when I came across the story of two little girls whose burial location was almost destined to remain a mystery forever.
The story begins in the late 1800s, when William and Agnes Woods Doxey came to America from England. The couple had been busy building a family before their journey, and traveled to America with their eight children. The family settled in Ogden, Utah. Unfortunately, soon after their arrival, their youngest child Villamina Violet became ill with cholera and died. She was buried near where the family was living, but her grave was not marked by a headstone.
When the family found work in Salt Lake City just a year or two later, they relocated there from Ogden. Along with this move came the birth of another little girl, Violet Annie. Unfortunately, little Violet was sickly and lived only four months. Her father was working as a stonecutter and he made a coffin and headstone for his little girl and buried her.
After the death of Violet Annie, Agnes became inconsolable. Her marriage to William fell apart and she eventually moved with her children to San Francisco. The children never knew the whereabouts of their sisters’ graves. Years later, a niece of one of Agnes’s children became interested in the sad story of the two little girls. She was living in Salt Lake City and decided to see whether they were buried in the city cemetery. When she called the cemetery to inquire, she was told that Violet was buried there.
However, this was not the end of the line for this story. When the woman went to the cemetery to visit the grave, she could not find it even after being given directions by a caretaker. She tried again, and again she could not find it. When she tried a third time she walked a little bit further than she had been instructed to, and she found the grave. It turns out that not only was Violet Annie buried there, her sister Villamina Violet had been moved there and laid to rest alongside her sister, probably around the time that Violet was buried. The woman recorded the information from the tombstone so that she could add it to her family history research.
Lest you think that that is the end of the story, it goes on. Two weeks after the woman found the grave, she brought her mother there to show her what she had found. To their surprise, the tombstone was completely crumbled and unreadable. If the woman had not discovered it and recorded the information from it when she did, it would never have been found.