Woman feels 'lucky' to find stillborn sister's grave

Bernie Stanton has been able to trace the grave of her stillborn sister, who died in 1958

A woman who has visited the grave of her stillborn sister 67 years after her death says she is "lucky" to have been able to find it at all.

Bernie Stanton travelled from Ireland to see the grave in Liverpool for the first time recently after finding her sister's record.

"I was lucky the fact that my sister's birth was recorded. I know a lot of people can't find that record and they are having problems tracing the relations."

Ms Stanton, who was born in Liverpool, said that although her mother mentioned she had a stillborn sister - who had been born at the city's former Oxford Street Hospital - "she didn't really talk about her much".

"It was a bad experience. She just said that she remembers my father carrying out a white haired child from the room and that was it."

'The way things were done then'

Before and even into the 1980s, the bodies of stillborn and miscarried babies were often taken away by hospital workers from families who were not given any details of their resting place.

According to recent Freedom of Information requests, at least 89,000 miscarried or stillborn babies were buried in mass graves around the country.

"That was the way things were done at the time," Ms Stanton said.

"I suppose at the time, they thought they were doing them good by just taking the baby away. But it must have been very, very hard for [my parents]."

The impact meant that when Ms Stanton became pregnant herself, her mother did not want her to buy anything for the child until the birth.

She said it was "because she had actually bought the stuff for my stillborn sister and had to return it to the shop when she died. So you know, it was always on our mind."

'A pity it's taken 60 years'

Ms Stanton decided to trace her sister's grave after watching BBC coverage about other families who had traced graves of stillborn children.

"I searched online and I managed to find out how to obtain a register of her birth. I was lucky that it had been registered."

Her cousin Mary then informed her of the Facebook group Gina's Sleeping Babies Reunited which could help, before Liverpool council officials were able to assist in tracing the grave.

On Ms Stanton's first visit last week, she brought daffodils that her father had planted in Ireland and stones from her parents' graves.

"So now at least there is acknowledgement that she's buried there and we know we can go and visit more often. But it's a pity that it's taken over 60 years to find her."