In the April of 1912, twenty-four year old William Truax married Nellie Pucciarelli, just eighteen, in Madison County Indiana. The young couple soon found out they were expecting a baby. No doubt they looked forward to the new arrival as would any young couple. At some point early on, they relocated to Muncie settling down at 509 South Madison Street. Christmas came and went and the new year dawned with all of the hopes and expectations of impending parenthood. Unfortunately on January 23, 1913, their child, a little girl, was stillborn.
In another part of town on the same day, two men discovered a bundle floating in White River. The men were on the bank near where the train tracks cross the river then pass through Beech Grove Cemetery. The bundle was pulled from the water and upon closer examination was found to be a baby girl of about seven months gestation. With no ability to identify the child and no one coming forward to claim it, the coroner completed an autopsy then worked towards securing burial arrangements.
The two tragic stories came together, possibly in the offices of Beech Grove Cemetery or at the funeral parlor of Moffitt and Groman, no one knows where for sure. A young couple in the throes of grief having just lost their first-born child consented to have the unknown little girl buried with their own. Their generosity likely allowed them their own sense of peace that neither their baby, nor the unknown baby, would be alone. The two children were buried in Beech Grove, Section C, Single Lot 125 on January 24, 1913. The grave is likely unmarked, but that has not yet been confirmed.
