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• • Mother receives gift 68 years in the making
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  • Mother receives gift 68 years in the making

BILLINGS - "I often wonder what he would've been like," ponders Tina Gohner, 88. "What kind of a life he would've had,"

On December 20, 1941 Gohner gave birth to a baby boy, but he soon developed pneumonia and died within a month.

Unable to afford a headstone, his grave was marked with a number instead of a name.

Now, 68 years later, Tina's baby, Curtis, has been recognized.

"I've been wanting to do this for many, many years," explains Gohner who says she's never gone a day in her life without thinking about Curtis.

Not sure how to go about placing a headstone, Gohner wrote a letter to Yellowstone County Commissioner Jim Reno, explaining her situation.

"He wrote me the nice letter and said don't worry about a thing," Gohner recalls. "He said it's going to be all taken care of."

Commissioner Reno says he's just happy to help.

"I don't take credit for this," says Reno. "I'm just one of the cheerleaders."

For the County Commissioners, placing headstones on all unmarked graves in Riverside Cemetery has become a priority.

"It's understandable to die poor, it's not okay to not have a headstone," states Reno.

The county has already purchased 100 stones that will be placed on the graves of children and those that are not marked at all.

The county is not planning on replacing numbered grave sites belonging to adults.

Yellowstone County has also created a database where you can look up a person and locate their grave site on a map of the cemetery, whether it is marked with a name or number.

Each stone costs the county $170

But it's not an easy task to match the person to grave. While some burials are marked with a name or number, others don't have any markers at all.

"We've discovered 1,300 burials out here. The challenge is to get the record straight and, as you can see here, we have multi burials in one grave site. This one has two babies, side by side, unrelated," Reno says motioning towards Curtis Gohner's site.

Baby Gohner shares his grave with another baby that died in November 1941. She was one day old.

The weathered "67" on baby Gohner's grave hasn't been replaced, but an added new stone with a name and dateline has given his mother peace of mind.

"I told Jim, 'You couldn't have given me a nicer Mother's Day gift. The nicest one I've ever had,'" Gohner says in tears. "It's a good feeling."