Based on a True Story
Why did these babies die? One hundred years ago, almost every family knew the sorrow of losing a child. Sickness was a constant threat, and Death a frequent visitor. But to bury seven babies? There has got to be more than, “They just died.”
Thomas L. Wiley tells the moving story of his wife’s step-great-grandmother and the seven angels that she buried in the Lockhart Cemetery, ten miles north of Meridian. When great-grandfather Stephen Parker’s first wife dies, he is left alone to raise three young children. He soon remarries; his new bride is nineteen year old Lizzie. Ollie, the oldest of Stephen’s children, grieves as he sees his mother slowly being forgotten. But his grief pales in comparison to the sorrow and suspicion that he and his family experience as Lizzies’s babies begin to die. And with each new, unexplained death, Ollie becomes less willing to accept that these babies just died. Who is responsible, and why?
In rural Mississippi there is an old church cemetery where seven babies, all brothers and sisters, are buried. None lived past twenty-two months and each died before the next was born. According to the family, these little ones died of common childhood illnesses: innocent victims in a time when medicine had little to offer. But has the truth really been told? Were these deaths as innocent as the family would have us believe?
Based on a true story, The Angels of Lockhart is a gripping look at a family whose sorrow turns to suspicion when babies begin to die. Were these deaths unavoidable tragedies, or have dark secrets been concealed by this family for the past one hundred years?
“A Heartbreaking and Heartwarming Story of Family, Sorrow, Faith, and Suspicion!”
“Powerful, Fascinating!”
