Family Keepsake Friday - The Death Watch

****WARNING: The portrait in this post is that of an infant in death. Please use caution if viewing with a child, or skip this post if you cannot view such material!

Charles Edward Banet

Stillborn Sep 1901

Today we view taking portraits, especially ones so formal as this, as a bit on the macabre. However, at a time when ultrasounds and sonograms weren't even heard of, and photographs were at a premium, families took portraits of the dead. In this manner they could immortalize, and memorialize, the individual. Especially that of infants and children.

In my Mother's family [the Dreher's and Banet's] this has been especially true. Even today we take photographs. While we look back upon them on occasion, it is with an abiding love and respect for the individual. And they are associated with the comfort one received from the eulogies and funeral for the deceased. I personally have photographs of my Grandpa and Grandma Dreher, as well as my Grandma Bean, as they lay in the funeral parlor.

Charles Edward Banet was the first born son of Edward Stephen Banet and Cora Francis Mitchell.

It is presumed that since his birth was in New Albany, Floyd County, Indiana, that he is buried there as well.

Charles' father, Edward,  was my first cousin, three times removed. We shared my great-great-grandparents Banet.