James Roscoe Wiseheart was born to parents Sanford Wesley and Mildred Gertrude (Springer) Wiseheart on November 13, 1930.  He had two older sisters and two older brothers, one of whom was my grandfather.  The family lived in Clark County, Indiana at the time.  Jimmy didn’t live long and I know very little about him.  Grandpa said that Jimmy was given his middle name, Roscoe, after his father’s good friend, Roscoe Treece.  Jimmy died at the age of two from convulsions due to a fever that was brought on by lobar pneumonia.¹  He was the first of two Wiseheart children to die young.  The other was Mary Katherine, who was born after Jimmy died.

Recently, as my dad, my uncle and I were going trough the Rakestraw trunk, we came across a photograph of Jimmy in his coffin (which I will not post) and one little shoe that had been found in the potato patch just four months after his death.  How heartbreaking it must’ve been to find the shoe, and how precious.

The note that had been tucked into the shoe.

Jimmy’s shoe.

1.  Clark County, Indiana Deaths, Roll 20, Book 2, p.11, Jeffersonville Township Public Library.