Into the 1990s, unclaimed inmates in NY State asylums (and many other states as well) were buried solely by number. The records for many institutional burials have been lost or sealed, but for this particular hospital, the burial ledger was given to a museum in Buffalo, and has since been transcribed into entries on the Find-a-Grave website.
That afternoon we walked the lefthand section searching the cast iron markers for one that was stamped 584.
The story goes that when she received the notification call that her father-in-law had passed away Heidi's grandmother was confused. "I thought he was already dead," she told the caller, "kicked in the head by a horse years ago." Her husband never spoke of his father, and although she was in high school when her grandfather died, Heidi's mom never met him. Like her mother, she thought he was dead.
This is quite the intriguing story!
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