Bartlesville Woman Searching For Family Connected To Headstone From 1875

A cemetery sat along the Caney River on Kim Burruss' family property in Bartlesville. 

Her family moved out to the property when she was around four years old. 

"As a little girl, I used to play in the woods and go adventuring, and I found that cemetery, and only one of the headstones was a yellow-gold baby one, and it infatuated me," Kim said.

The headstone read, "Harry D. Son of H. and L. Ross, died Dec. 1875, age 5 months old."

She says floods in 1986 and 2007 washed the graves at the cemetery away. 

"All that water just flowing past those graves, just headstones falling down in there, going away, graves falling down in there, going away, and then the flood of '07 happened and water going up and down, and they're just completely gone," she said. 

She says a few headstones remained, including the one she loved of the five-month-old baby.

Kim's spent almost her entire life wondering about this baby and his family. 

She says as she gets older, it's more important than ever to get answers. 

"Me, as a mom, could I just leave that headstone and just go away and never come back, or just die and nobody be told, nobody knows," she said.

She's gone to the Bartlesville Library and also the historical museum to see if she can find out anything. 

She's learned the cemetery was named Daniels Cemetery but nothing else about who is buried there. 

"There were 48 graves registered at the library, some of the names registered at the library weren't out there on the headstones, and some of the headstone's names weren't registered at the library," she said.

She hopes someone will know something, and she can make the call she's always hoped to make. 

"I've always thought about that moment, when oh my gosh, I'm going to call this family, they're going to think I'm weird, they're going to think what, no way, but somebody is going to go oh really that's awesome, yes we would love to have it," she said.

She made a promise to herself to find this baby's family.

He matters to her and knows he will matter to his family, too. 

"He's home in heaven, but here on earth, his headstone was left. He needs to be at home with his family here," she said.