A Little Angel

There are many children's graves throughout the Albany Rural Cemetery. They are often marked with such symbols of youth and innocence as lambs or doves or angels. Some, like Georgie, a touching portraits of the deceased child. Others show idealized sleeping infants or the accessories of childhood (tiny carved boots, a little girl's hat, tiny empty chairs). They are sad, but sweet reminders of the higher children's mortality rate of previous eras.

This small monument on the Middle Ridge (just a stone's throw from the Burden vault with its majestic dogs) has one of the most adorable cherubs I've seen in the Rural Cemetery and marks the grave of one Robert J.Rose, Jr. who died in 1910 at the tender age of eight.