Just last week I had a teacher ask me to not talk about an item in our
collection when she visited with her fifth grade class.  We have an infant's
grave marker at our local-history museum, that was found in someone's
backyard, but was apparently originally stolen from a small, Rev-War-era
family cemetery in town. I usually talk to the classes about what it was
like to be a child in our town, through the centuries, and we have used that
headstone to talk about how better hygiene and advances in medicine have
given us longer lives.  I used to ask the students what they thought were
some of the reasons the young child might have died those many years ago.
   The teacher felt that 9/11 was still having an impact on the class (most
of the town commutes to jobs in NYC) and she didn't want me to bring up the
subject of death.  I ignored the stone when they came, but had prepared a
Power Point presentation that included a photo of that old cemetery and an
image of one of the oldest stones.
   I tend to feel that we are now far removed from what is an inevitable
thing for us all -- death -- and that the historic perspective, wherein
families would "picnic" in the family cemetery is a far healthier attitude.
How do you feel about her request and what would you have done?
Lynne

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