In downstate town, when violence claims young lives, these men prepare the graves

More than 30 years ago, Johnnie Haire, the grounds supervisor at Sunset Gardens of Memory cemetery in downstate Millstadt, set up a birdbath and purchased angel figurines for a special area of the cemetery for deceased children, called Baby Land. He carefully painted each angel a hue of brown. He says he wanted the angels to be Black, like many of the children laid to rest there. (Cara Anthony / KHN)

MILLSTADT, Ill. — It was a late Friday afternoon when a group of men approached a tiny, pink casket. One wiped his brow. Another stepped away to smoke a cigarette. Then, with calloused hands, they gently lowered the child’s body into the ground.

Earlier that day, the groundskeepers at Sunset Gardens of Memory had dug the small grave on a hill in a special section of the cemetery in a southern Illinois community across the river from St. Louis. It was for a 3-year-old girl killed by a stray bullet.