Who left dolls at a little girl’s grave?
Woman hopes to unravel mystery of toys left for child who died 92 years ago
It’s a mystery for the ages.
Why would someone place toy dolls at the grave of a little St. Catharines girl who died 92 years ago?
The question has intrigued Amanda Balyk for the past four months, since she stumbled on the gravesite while looking for another burial at Victoria Lawn cemetery on Queenston Street.
“I saw the dolls and I thought, that’s kind of strange … it’s jarring to see,” said Balyk, a fourthyear history student at Brock University.
“So I thought, let’s do some digging and see if I can find anything about her. Sure enough, I found her obituary.”
Marguerite Pay was seven years old when she contracted scarlet fever and died in an isolation hospital in 1927.
Her little tombstone is in the shape of a sleeping lamb. The dolls — some stuffies and Cabbage Patch Dolls — were placed around it this year, it would seem.
Cemetery staff have carefully trimmed the grass without disturbing the dolls.
“Then I got thinking more about it … I came back to take pictures, I kind of couldn’t get it off my mind,” Balyk said. “That’s when I saw the family stone in behind her stone” a few feet away.
That gave her the name of Marguerite’s parents, William and Violet. Marguerite’s siblings are buried there as well.
Further digging turned up the 1921 census that shows the Pay family lived at 25 Kernahan St. in St. Catharines. The house is still there.
Balyk contacted the cemetery and the St. Catharines Museum, but they had no information to add.
As she learned more about little Marguerite, one question remained — why, so long after her short life ended, would someone leave her dolls?
“It’s sweet that 92 years after her death someone still cares about her enough to leave the dolls,” Balyk said.
Scarlet fever — which mostly strikes children — is an infection that can develop in people with strep throat.
It’s characterized by a bright red rash on the body and high fever, but today antibiotics have largely eliminated it as a lifethreatening illness.
Scarlet fever was in Niagara in the mid-1920s. In Welland, Ross School opened the same year Marguerite Pay died, and its indoor pool is believed to have been closed soon after due to fears of a scarlet fever outbreak.
At Victoria Lawn cemetery, Sandy Mokrzynski said they’re in the dark as to who left the dolls.
“We’re pretty sure it’s a family member, and we would have no control over what family members put on a grave,” she said.
Her best guess? Someone studying genealogy.
“So many people are doing their family histories and they’re visiting older graves and finding long-lost family,” said Mokrzynski, a client services coordinator for the city’s parks, recreation and culture services department.
It’s not unusual to see toys or other mementos left on graves. And Victoria Lawn, which opened in 1856, has 83,000 graves.
“I had a woman once that came back from England,” she said. “I think her mother was a war bride, and she came over with her (parents). Then her father died young, so the mother went back to England with the child.
“She was now in her 70s and finally came to see her father’s grave.”
Cemetery staff “absolutely” get more inquiries these days looking for help searching for people’s ancestors.
“People travel from … everywhere,” Mokrzynski said.
“Genealogy is huge. Sometimes we’ll get people’s whole life stories, or how they came here and who this person is they are looking for.” But none of that solves the mystery of the dolls left at one little girl’s grave.