My dad often referred to his seven siblings when recalling how the family split up when their parents died, and they were “farmed out” in 1900 to various aunts and uncles. But he seldom mentioned the ninth member of the family, William Albert Weyand, who was only two years old when he died in 1884.

Historic Baby Shoes

Years later, when I discovered two pairs of baby shoes that had been saved with old photos and other family memorabilia, he told me they had belonged to his mother. When my parents died, the shoes remained with me, tiny reminders of my family, and their early struggles. Recently rediscovered, they had spent years hidden away as our family went about our lives.

Although my dad traced the shoes to his mother, I have a strong hunch they belonged to her late son, and she saved them to honor his memory. In the mid-1800s, when many babies died in infancy, E.D.E.N. Southworth, a novelist, wrote a short essay in Godey’s Lady’s Book on the subject, according to an article by Jeanne Gutierrez for the New York Historical Society. “There is no part of a baby’s wardrobe so suggestive and beautiful as the little shoes,” he wrote. Southworth’s essay made several references to grieving mothers who kept baby shoes in the 1800s.