The Roanoker - November/December 2019 - 11

No child had been born whose birth had not been
officially recorded and whose mother was not recovering
comfortably under hospital care. Even retired physicians
were contacted, but none indicated having recently
delivered a baby. Police had only dead ends.
Roanoke's child welfare nurse had begun preparing
for the infant's care upon release from the hospital, a
process that normally involved alerting the press so
that the public could be made aware of the need for an
adoption. Meanwhile, hospital nurses and doctors were
doing everything they could to render medical care and
to provide the tiny infant with human warmth - rocking
her, singing to her, cradling her.
For all the attention, Little Baby X was not
responding. Her breathing remained a struggle, and her
abandonment in the hours following birth was taking
its toll.
Police and hospital officials quietly discouraged the
local police reporter from publicizing the infant's plight,
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hoping the mother or some relative might come to claim
the child. If the press reported on Little Baby X it might
keep relatives away to avoid shame and embarrassment.
Days turned into weeks, and no one came.
After three weeks at Roanoke Hospital, Little Baby
X's condition was not improving. On the morning of
September 3rd, the infant died. Never claimed and
never named. "Little Baby X" had been ascribed to her
by the nurses.
The Roanoke Times police reporter penned the
baby's story with atypical emotion. He took it upon
himself to start a flower fund for the infant's burial,
and others having learned of the child's circumstances
volunteered their services.
William Lotz, a local funeral director, donated
a casket, and Paul Coffey of Evergreen Burial Park
donated a plot. The reporter's flower fund provided
for a large floral spray that adorned the casket, an
arrangement deeply discounted by florist Frank Wertz.
A photograph of the flowers that appeared in the
Roanoke newspaper showed a ribbon that read, "Baby
X." A grave marker was given by Ralph Mills of Magic
City Granite Works.
At 11 a.m. on September 4, the Reverend Charles
Gentry of First Wesleyan Church offered a graveside
prayer, and the tiny casket was lowered into the ground
beneath the shade of a towering fir tree. About a dozen
persons attended the brief service.
"Thus was ended another tragic chapter in the life of
an ever-changing world," read the Roanoke Times. "An
unnamed child, gone to its last resting place. Gone - yes,
but not forgotten by those who, least concerned, made
an unpretentious display of that deepest-rooted emotion
of human nature - a tender spot in their hearts."
Roanoke detectives had one promising lead in the
days after the burial, but it, like any others, proved
fruitless.
The idea of abandoning a child was not as remote as
one might think during the years of World War II. On
another occasion in Roanoke a couple, who had stayed
at the Hotel Roanoke, found an infant in the back seat
of their car that was in the hotel parking lot. A few
days later, the infant's grandparents in Floyd County
claimed the child.
Roanoke's child welfare nurse shared in a report
to the City Council in late 1945 that, during the war
years, 113 children had been entrusted to the care of
her department, primarily due to their mothers being
destitute and fathers being overseas in service.
Of all such cases, however, Little Baby X was unique
in that no claims for the child were ever made, and
the mystery surrounding her abandonment was never
solved. I

AT LEFT:
A postcard of
Roanoke Hospital
from the early 1940s.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2019

11
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The Roanoker - November/December 2019

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