THE FORGOTTEN CHILD

[Angela]

Charlie and Fannie Lawson had another son, Willam Sanders Lawson. William was born in 1914 and died in 1920 when he was a few weeks shy of his 6th year. His was Charlie and Fannie's third child. Nothing is know about this little boy other than the year of his birth and death and the cause of his death which was said to have been pneumonia. We have a birth certificate on him but no death certificate. I have spoken with over 100 people in Stokes County and no one remembers him or can tell us ANYTHING about him. He is buried in Browder Cemetery or so we assume since his name is inscribed on the Lawson family headstone. If he was buried in Browder Cemetery in 1920, was his body in the plot where the rest of his family is now and that is why that particular section in Browder Cemetery was chosen for the burial place for the rest of his family in 1929? Or was he originally buried somewhere else in Browder Cemetery and exhumed and moved to the Lawson plot? Surely is his body and coffin were in the plot that now holds the rest of his family with the exception of his brother Arthur, someone who helped dig the grave and or attended the funeral would have seen it and said something about it but no one has. If his original grave was somewhere else in the cemetery, where was it and what happened to his tombstone, assuming he even had one? Even the members on the board of directors of Browder Cemetery know anything about him being buried there. In fact, one member of the board I spoke with last night had never even heard of William Sanders Lawson period!! It seems so sad that this young child has been completely forgotten. Not even a death certificate has been found for him. In Stella Lawson's extensive notes/memoirs she mentions William only once with one single incident where she spoke of playng with Carrie, Wlliam, and Maybell one summer afternoon. That's it. No other mention of him. I would love to know more about this little boy but like the rest of the Lawson family saga William is only one more mystery lost to history.
Maria

[Angela]

Another sad chapter in the lives of the Lawson family. Charlie and Fannie losing a six year old son, Marie and Arthur losing a younger brother. Curious about the where abouts of William's final resting place. If it was in the same place, they would have had to dig him up in order to put the others down there. He would have been gone nine years by that time. I wonder what the caskets were made of back then. I would think that without a vault, the metal would have begun to break down. Perhaps he was not buried there at all. Did Charlie and Fannie even live in that area at that time? He may well have been interred on or near the property of their previous home.
Jackhammer

[Angela]

Good morning Jackhammer,
William was born in 1914 which means he was born while his family still lived in Lawsonville. He moved to Germanton with his family in 1918. He was 3 and a half years old. At the time of his death he was living in Germanton. A lot of the caskets back then were made from cheap wood. I don't think vaults were commom back then so every vestige of William Lawson and his coffin might well have been long gone by 1929. I also heard that quite a few people buried in Browder Cemetery back in those years were not even buried in a coffin. Their bodies were just wrapped in a shroud and laid in the ground. It depened I suppose on how much money a person had. If that was the case with little William Lawson then nothing was probably left of him.
Maria

[Angela]

I remember reading about him in TMOOT. I thought it was so sad. He was too young to die. Could they have buried him somewhere else in the cemetery maybe and not had enough money for a tombstoneso the family just added his name to the big Lawson family tombstone in 1929?
Sissy

[Angela]

That's what I'm working on finding out Sissy. All I know at this time is "I don't know".
Maria

[Angela]

Why was a death certificate not issued for this child?
Sissy

[Angela]

Certificates of births and deaths were not mandatory until 1913 and the rural areas where the Lawson's lived were slow to catch up.
Maria

[Angela]

I was just re-reading your post Maria and it is very sad that no one remembers this child. I find it amazing that if he was buried in Browder Cemetery no one on the board of directors knows anything about it.
Sissy

[Angela]

I agree with you Sissy. Seeing as how everyone else in his family is so well remembered it seems more sad that he's been forgotten. However, I'm sure the rest of the family would never have been remembered if they had not been murdered. If he had not died he would have been 15 at the time of the murders.
Maria

[Angela]

I have tried to go out to Browder Cemetery a couple of times but have not been able to find it. I printed a map out and saw that it was off of Bolejack/Payne Road but when I am on that road I cannot see a cemetery. Can anyone tell me how to get there?
Laurie

[Angela]

Hello Mcpepper,
Browder Cemetery is no where near Bolejack/Payne road, not really anyway. It's several miles away from there if you go up Highway 8 from it's intersection with Old Hollow road. You will come to a place where Highway 8 turns left. Follow Highway 8 a few miles to Brook Cove road on your right. IMMEDIATELY after you turn on to Brook Cove you will see a dirt road into the trees that says Private Drive. This road leads up to Browder Cemetery.
Michael818

[Angela]

Maria, I was reading your 2nd post from the top where it says that some people in Browder Cemetery were not buried in a casket. I never knew they did anything like that. I thought they would at least make some kind of wooden casket. It's awfully sad to think about that.
Angel71242

[Angela]

That's what I was told by a woman who worked with her father in a funeral ome in Danbury and a man who is one of the members on the board of directors at Browder cemetery told me that they did that in Browder Cemetery as well. Everything about Charlie lawson's family is sad. I remember a lady who told me that when she went to the funeral service for the Lawson family in 1929 she saw someone pick up one of those temporary metal markers which was lying on the ground beside the big gaping hole hole and watched as they tossed it away. She said she was pretty sure it was William Lawson. But here's the problem with that...the lady who told me that could not have been at the funeral for the Lawson family because she was only 3 months old at that time. I kept my mouth shut about that though. I didn't want to embarrass her.
Maria

[Angela]

I just hate that William fell through the cracks so easily and quickly while the rest of them are remembered and spoken of so often.
Maria

[Angela]

We'll keep his memory alive Maria.
Angel71242