Heartbreaking Story of the Red-Headed Baby

According to gossip, Redheaded Connie and Callie were reputed to have been left on their Pentecostal aunt’s doorstep at birth. This fascinating tidbit guaranteed my interest.  I imagined them lying in a basket, long waist-length braids dangling from a basket, dusting the ground. They were high-school girls when I was in first grade, so I never gave them much thought beyond that.

Connie dropped our house for some forgotten reason, many years later with her young husband and a four-month-old baby girl.  Connie and Jimmy had been fishing the day before with their baby.  Apparently, they knew little about baby-care and they hadn’t protected the baby from the sun.  The tiny infant was as red-headed as its young mother, and extremely sun-burned.  Mother was terribly worried about the baby, insisting the young parents take her to the doctor.  Since the baby didn’t act sick, nursed, and played happily, the inexperienced parents ignored my parents’ concerns and went happily on their way.

The next day at church, we learned the young couple had awakened to find their baby dead in her crib.  Our small community mourned, especially my mother, feeling perhaps she could have done more to save to sweet baby.  Of course, in the 1950s, this was not possible.  The young couple soon divorced.