Jamesville Christian Church
Jamesville, North Carolina
November 22, 1938
They desired privacy, under the
circumstances, so they planned an informal, intimate farewell to
their baby daughter. Yes, that seemed to be the thing to do. They
weren’t sure why if felt right. It just did.
Invitations would be limited to close family members, the pastor, and of course the funeral director from nearby Williamston, the county seat. It would be a short service, simple but elegant, something befitting the short life they were celebrating.
The church was small, perhaps ten rows of pews on each side, separated by a red carpet running down the middle from back to front. Three stained-glass windows adorned the walls on each side, tinted yellowish, allowing enough light from the outside sun to filter into the sanctuary. But the thick tint of the windows did not allow anyone from the outside to see in or anyone from the inside to see out.
They gathered in the chancel of the church and stood near the simple, marble pedestal. On it sat a white coffin, so small that it looked almost like a shoe box. At the base of the pedestal against the red carpet, two arrangements of flowers—one from Grace Episcopal in Plymouth and the other from Jamesville Christian Church—commemorated the baby girl’s brief stay on earth.
All were standing except for Jessie, the surviving baby, and the three other Brewer children, who were seated like stair steps according to their age and height on the first-row pew of the church. A handful of people milled around the chancel area, but the rest of the small church sanctuary was empty.
Jessie had been released from the hospital the day before. She looked frail, having survived the past six days from nutrients and antibiotics pumped into her veins from a clear glass bottle dangling above her hospital bed. Yesterday, Dr. Papineau removed from her inner forearm the long, painful, stainless steel needle that had been connected to the bottle by a rubber feeding tube.
A big, purple bruise covered half her arm, perhaps because the nurses at times had been overly aggressive with her dosages. Or perhaps the nurses had missed the vein and had to re-stick her arm. Walter wasn’t sure what caused the bruising and decided not to mention it to Jesse because he didn’t want to call attention to it.
Looking weak and dazed from her near bout with death, Jessie sat in the wheelchair just in front of her three older children, Virginia, Hardison, and Caroline, stroking their baby brother’s head as he sucked on a warm bottle of milk. She refused to let anyone pry the prematurely-born infant from her clutch.
Nine days old, oblivious to everything around him except the white fluid now filling his miniature belly, Zachary Mitchell Brewer, the fourth living child of Walter and Jessie, would never remember this day. He would be told of his twin sister Mona, of her arrival fifteen minutes before him, of their one week on earth together, and of her death at the end of that week. Beyond that, Mona Shephard Brewer would be a name only to the boy, a twin sister he never knew.
This being the case, Walter worried about the wisdom of exposing his infant son to the cold. He had thought maybe it would be best to leave him home with Cousin Eva Gray or perhaps Ellie, that maybe Jessie should just skip the funeral. She was so weak.
When Walter had suggested these ideas, Jessie would have none of it. She was determined to attend the funeral and equally determined not to release the baby. She’d lost one baby and she wasn’t going to let the other out of her sight, not even for a minute.
Walter capitulated when Dr. Papineau said that baby Zack “will be fine if he’s kept warm with blankets.”
“Besides,” the doctor reasoned, “Jessie has drawn her will to live from the baby. Maybe holding him in her arms will help her get through the funeral.”
Pastor Bobby Holliday looked at Walter. It was time.
Walter leaned over and whispered in Jessie’s ear. She nodded but kept her eyes on Zack as Walter rolled her wheelchair to within a couple feet of the pedestal holding the little casket.
He turned to Virginia, Hardison, and Caroline. “It’s time to say good-bye to baby sister.”
Virginia took Hardison by the hand, leading him to within inches of the right wheel of Jessie’s wheelchair. Caroline made a beeline for Walter, who stood to Jessie’s left with his hand resting on her shoulder.
“Let us all hold hands and form a circle around the casket,” Pastor Bobby Holliday said. He gave the small group time to comply.
“Let us pray. Lord, your servants have come here on this day to say good-bye to Mona Shephard Brewer, the precious baby daughter of Walter and Jessie. Little Mona never got to grow up with her family in Jamesville, Lord. Instead, You brought her home to Yourself. We do not always understand Your ways or Your purposes, but nevertheless, in You we commit our trust.
“O Lord, we stand today holding hands in a small circle around her small body. Soon that circle will be broken, as we return this precious child to whence she came. For as You have said, ‘From dust that we were formed, and to dust we shall return.’
“We pray that though the circle will be broken this day, that one day it shall be mended together again. That by Your merciful hand, one day Walter and Jessie will have a relationship with their baby daughter, that little Zack—and we pray Your blessings on him—will know his twin sister, and that Virginia, Hardison, and Caroline will be mended to this one they have lost so young in life.
“And we are reminded of the preciousness of life, oh Lord, that all life, no matter how old, no matter how young, is precious in your sight. May we all gather again one day under Your eternal light, basking in the glory of thy only begotten Son.
“For it is in His name and for His sake that we pray, Amen.”
The undertaker, in a gray suit and wearing white gloves, cradled the baby’s casket in his arms then walked down the center aisle and out the front door.