Farewell, unknown girl

Jackie Boisa buried her own daughter, Cheryl, in 1994. It was the hardest thing she'd ever done.

On Monday, she and her friend Corrina Aguilar — another bereaved mom from The Compassionate Friends support group — helped put a complete stranger's child to rest in the Sutter Cemetery.

"Baby Hope," an unidentified newborn girl found dead in the Sacramento River on Sept. 9, got a proper burial, thanks in large part to the women's efforts.

The Three Rivers Chapter of the American Red Cross contributed $400 to pay for the child's burial plot. L&L Monuments supplied a headstone, and several funeral homes and florists stepped forward with contributions, Boisa said.

"She needed a family — and she got the whole community," she said of Baby Hope.

About 25 strangers turned out to say farewell to the child, whose cause of death still is unknown.

The Compassionate Friends, a national network of support groups for bereaved parents, organized a candlelight vigil shortly after the baby was discovered.

Baby Hope had been found in the river just south of Verona. She had an umbilical cord and afterbirth still attached, according to Sutter County Sheriff's Department officials.

"Maybe the baby was stillborn," Boisa speculated after the noon burial. "I choose to believe the mother was a young girl hiding the pregnancy from her family."

Boisa's own daughter, Cheryl Boisa, was 13 when she fell suddenly, gravely ill one evening. She died the next day.

Aguilar lost her son early this year — the victim of an accidental shooting.

Putting together funeral arrangements for unidentified babies is not part of their organization's mission, Boisa said.

For Martha Griese, CEO of the local Red Cross chapter, the decision to commit funds for Baby Hope's burial was based on the Red Cross mission to provide "relief for victims of disaster."

"I see Baby Hope as a victim of disaster," she said. "No one claimed her, so she belongs to the whole community."

Contact reporter Nancy Pasternack at 749-4712 or npasternack@appealdemocrat.com