Babyland

ANDRESEN, SNYDER

Posted By: June Brewer Welsch (email)
Date: 12/21/2007 at 03:31:51

From Muscatine Iowa Journal Dec 13, 2007
Heartbreak and healing: The anticipation of childbirth is sometimes robbed by death; but thanks to a Muscatine woman, people whose babies are laid to rest in Babyland can find their visits less heartbreaking and more heartwarming

MUSCATINE, Iowa - She stood on the icy ground of the cemetery, reflecting on the past, two daughters and grandchild by her side. Barb Andresen always wondered why three of her babies were born without life.

"I always wanted three kids," she said, smiling and after many complications, three is what she eventually wound up with.

Andresen and her daughters, Debe Naber, 50, and Kelly Howell, 45, and granddaughter, Kylee Howell, were at Memorial Park Cemetery to visit the graves of Anthony, Susan and Thomas; Barb and Bob Andresen’s children who came into the world stillborn. Their other daughter, Vickie Comeau of St. Louis, was not there Wednesday, but has been in the past.

"I remember as a child mom putting decorations on Anthony and Susan’s graves," Naber said.

Andresen, 70, has been decorating her children’s graves since they were buried: Anthony in 1960, Susan in ’61 and Thomas in ’70. But in 2000 she decided to do more for all of the families and held a fundraiser to buy equipment to install an electrical outlet in Babyland. Babyland is a portion of Memorial Park Cemetery where infants and young children are buried.

Since 2000, she’s asked for donations to brighten up the grounds and the Memorial Park Cemetery staff decorates the section, which is surrounded by hedges on the east end of the park. Snowmen, reindeer and a Christmas tree were among the holiday decorations covered in a heavy layer of ice in Babyland on Wednesday evening.

Tom Brehmer, cemetery office manager, said there have been 180 babies buried in Babyland since its inception on July 24, 1940. Memorial Park Cemetery opened in 1935.

Babyland has become a resting place for infants and children that were stillborn or died at a young age. Brehmer said it is often young parents who opt to have their children buried there, surrounded by other babies, because they may not be of the age where they’ve purchased a family plot to lay them to rest.

He also said families that don’t have a lot of money sometimes choose Babyland because it is less expensive than a plot elsewhere in the cemetery. An adult grave is 40-inches wide by 10-feet long; leaving room for a grave marker near the top. A Babyland grave is typically 2-feet by 2-feet, and the headstone is placed on top of the grave.

There is room for more burials in Babyland, Brehmer said. And though the thought is heartbreaking, it is realistic.

"There has been only one infant burial in the past year, and that was just a sad affair," he said. "There’s such a great anticipation of birth and then to have something go wrong is the worst feeling."

Many babies are buried elsewhere on the cemetery grounds and sometimes families move their baby’s burial container from Babyland to the family plot once they have acquired one.

Andresen has made it a tradition to pay tribute to all children in Babyland. Once, she even placed toys on every grave that wasn’t decorated.

"We (saw) that some of the markers were very old, dating back to the ’50s, so we would put a toy there so those children are not forgotten," Naber said.

Andresen said sadness overwhelmed her after losing three children and that they’ll never be forgotten although she’ll never be sure why they didn’t survive.

"I’d just get so far and I just couldn’t carry them. No one ever knew why," she said of her pregnancies.

The lights, the tree and having family near when it’s time to remember those lost have made visiting Babyland a more pleasant experience for Andresen’s family.

"I know it’s a good thing for other families, too," she said.