Grieving Mom To Accompany Her Daughter, Builds Stairs Behind a Grave Leading to a Special Window Showing Her Casket

There is a grave at Natchez City Cemetery in Mississippi that looks normal at first glance, but a closer look at it and you will realize that there is a rather mysterious door behind the tombstone that opens up to a set of stairs leading down into the earth. 

This unique grave is of a 10-year old girl Florence Irene Ford, who passed away from yellow fever in 1871. 

After the tragic death of her daughter, Ellen Ford had a special window installed at the head of her child’s casket. The narrow stairway goes six feet down to the viewing window. On the cemetery’s website, they offer more details about the little girl and her grave:

“Florence was born on September 3, 1861. She died on October 30, 1871. The website reads: Florence died of yellow fever when she was 10 years old. During her short life, she was extremely frightened of storms and whenever one occurred she would rush to her mother to find comfort. Upon her death, her mother was so struck with grief that she had Florence’s casket constructed with a glass window at the child’s head. The grave was dug to provide an area, the same depth as the coffin, at the child’s head, but this area had steps that would allow the mother to descend to her daughter’s level so she could comfort Florence during storms.

To shelter the mother during storms, hinged metal trap doors were installed over the area the mother would occupy while at her child’s grave. There are trap doors behind little Florence’s tombstone, which covers the stairway her mother used. They can still be opened today. In the mid-1950s a concrete wall was erected at the bottom of the stairway covering the glass window of Florence’s coffin to prevent vandalism. “

This is how unmeasurable a mother's love is for her child. To accompany her daughter during storms to give her comfort she came up with such an idea. She couldn't bear the idea of her being alone.

After this post started circulating on social media, the Internet had a lot to say:

Kat Powell wrote:

Everybody goes through grief in different ways, if this is how her mum can cope till she gets over the worst then let her have that. There is never a right or wrong, specially when it’s your child. Hope she finds peace.

And to point out traditions back in those days were quite different from today. In fact, during those times, it was considered normal to take pictures of the deceased to pose as if they were still alive.

Lili Ren added: This is very sad. Modern medicine has dramatically reduced the mortality rate of children, it’s hard to imagine for a lot of people nowadays how it feels to loss many of your children before they reach adulthood. My great grandma lost 4 of her 10 children very soon after they were born because of tetanus. Judith Evans commented: It’s a bit macabre but if it comforted a grieving mother so be it. It was in the 1880s so perhaps it wasn’t such a.strange thing in that era.