Emma Tomlinson

Photo by Midge Frazel, 2004

Photo by Brian Zoldak, 2012, used with permission

This is the gravestone of 5 year old, little Emma TOMLINSON, grandaughter of George P. STEWART and his wife Polly HEWITT. She is buried near her grandparents in the Stewart Hill Cemetery in North Stonington, CT. Her parents, Henry Tomlinson of New York and his wife Julia STEWART are not buried with her.

The 1860 census, lists Julia (last born child of George and Polly Stewart) and her husband Henry living with 6 month old Emma and the widowed grandmother Polly. How sad it must have been to bury a 5 year old near the grandfather and then to bury the grandmother in 1870 just a few years later.

It has taken me a while to find out there was a sibling, named  Annie for Emma. She was born in 1866 after the death of her sister. They are listed in the 1880 census. Henry is a house carpenter.

This badly eroded gravestone was hard to read in 2004 and although the surrounding brush and weeds have been cleared from the stone, the date and the name of her parents is nearly illegible. This is when it is good to have a transcription rather than to guess at the name and dates.

I wanted you to see the top section of the gravestone, where it rewads, "Our Emma". The year of her death, during the Civil War, shows the sentimental "ownership" of the time.