Children buried together in the Pauper Section (Bukit Brown)

The moss gathered damaged marble tomb of Miss Thng Mooi Mooi who passed away at the age of 6 on 6th October 1937 at Block 3 Division 3, plot 127A reveals little of who she was in her brief moment of existence. If you go down to the National Archives to look at the microfilm, it will reveal two more additional information; her last known address and the cause of death and if you are lucky, you might be able to match that address to possible known residents during that period of time. The significance of the tomb of Miss Thng Ah Mooi (her name in the burial registrar), a 6 year old Hokkien girl to me was that it has help provided material and concrete evidence of clusters of plots which are often unmarked, that are reserved for children who died young or for babies born stillbirth in the Pauper Sections of Bukit Brown.

Thng Mooi Mooi / Thng Ah Mooi 

My attempt to find some this children plots in the pauper section started when going through the online burial registrar in the 1930's, i noticed patterns of young children who died of various ages, even in hours and days of death being documented as buried in Block 3 Division 1, Division 2, Division 3, etc. Armed with this information and some referenced plots ( 441A, B, C 442 A,B,C of the pauper section in Block 3 Division 1 ), I started combing in that area in search of evidence of this tombs.  My search ended in vain, so i thought until heaven send me a helping hand in the form of knowledgeable tomb keeper Queenie Quek who despite been busy during Qing Ming helped me in my quest. Although we couldn't find those two plots, she gave me 2 valuable hints. The first one was she remembered reserved plots in the area below (nearer to the stream) where there are no tombs and the second hint, she remembered seeing a marble tomb of a child in a nearby division from where we were. Thanking her i went on my way to try to explore further. After some misses, i stumbled upon the tomb exactly described by her ! Although only the tomb of Miss Thng Mooi Mooi was the only one visible (plot 127A) in this area, the burial registrar reveals a different story. In the same area and neighbouring area are bodies of many children, 4 to each plot, subdivided further to A, B, C. In the plot where Miss Thng Mooi Mooi, lies also 3 other infants who died at various ages, including the child of Kwok Loy Yong,  a male child of Keh dialect who died 7 hours after birth. Their plots are unmarked.

Many children remain "missing" in unmarked plots, but hopefully they will not be totally forgotten if Bukit Brown Cemetery is one day unfortunately destroyed for public housing.

Thng Ah Mooi and her companions in plot 127

Block 3 Division 3, plots 125 to 127 (all children)

Read also 

Gravestones of the young (Bukit Brown). Rojak Librarian, posted on 1 May 2017.
They died young (Bukit Brown). Rojak Librarian, posted on 1 March 2012