It always saddens me when I find children's tombstones. We today are so fortunate the child mortality rate is so low. We don't have to mourn the loss of children like our ancestors did.
Lotte Louise Rutledge died when she was 3. Or was she 4?
Her tombstone says:
LOTTIE LOUISE
daughter of J.D. and M.M.
RUTLEDGE
born Sept. 6, 1908
died June 10, 1911
The record of her death filed with Shelby county says 19 June 1912, according to the death index on the Shelby County website.
Indexes can be wrong, so I sent an e-mail to Tom Leatherwood, Shelby County Registrar of Deeds, asking about the discrepancy. I also took the opportunity to tell him how much I appreciated the website and online records.
I sent my message at 7:14 pm PST A member of his staff replied 1:56 pm PST the next day. Talk about service!
They explained they could not correct the online index as it accurately reflected the death record, and attached the image of the page to prove it. Wow!
The death record clearly says Lottie died 19 June 1912. It was reported with several other deaths on 7/8/12, so perhaps Dr. Parrot reported didn't accurately report her death. And who would care. Poor Lottie was dead, and what the doctor reported would probably not have mattered to her grieving family. Perhaps he did accurately report her death, but the indexers misinterpreted the listing. The clerks recorded it on a page labeled "1911-12."
No matter when it happened, her death was a tragedy for her family.
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