Lingering Ghosts

Images reflecting moments now gone;

Strangely, eerily lingering on;

Keeping such moments remembered;

Ghostly pale faces long since dead. 

Or are they?

Louisa is one of the daguerreotypes shown in the collection above. She is the one on the left in an oval mount within a leather case. Louisa was born in Middlesex, England, on the 7 January 1854, and christened at Stepney, London, on 17 March 1854. I shall refrain from providing her surname and middle name out of respect for the family with whom I have corresponded. In 1881, she married Joshua in Islington, London, and went on to have four children. What fascinates me about Louisa is not her life, but her death. Or rather the absence of any record of it happening. Her grandparents, parents, in-laws, husband and children all have their deaths recorded. But nothing exists for Louisa. The question is why?