Our World, Coming Home

Mary Louisa Portis  was just a week old when she died in 1853,

 and many years later, her gravestone was stolen from the cemetery at Cahawba.

  But last weekend, the stone came home after Good Samaritans found it

 discarded in a cemetery in Montgomery, and the Cahawba Foundation 

honored the return with a brief ceremony. 

Cahawba Foundation member Anne Dalton donned a period mourning dress

 to participate, and others sang, spoke, purchased the bouquet

 and laid flowers on the grave. 

Mary Louisa is buried next to her three-year-old sister, and their parents,

 Thomas and Emma Portis,  were teachers in the town near Selma that was Alabama's

 first permanent state capital. Their father later became an attorney,

 served in the War Between the States and eventually moved to St. Louis

 where he represented Jay Gould's railroad interests and apparently

 became vice president of the Missouri Pacific Railroad.

 Portis, Kansas was named in his honor.   

Linking to Our World Tuesday