Title

Ancestor: A. Jones, 1863-1888

Abstract

My name is A. Jones, and I was a black man that died of tuberculosis and valvular heart disease in Milwaukee County when I was 25 years old.

That is It.

That is all that remains of my humanity. Only a couple scraps of paper and the barest minimum of information. Not my story, not my passions, not where I was from—only where it all ended. You do not know me, and you never will, for I am now a faceless statistic amid many others.

But I adjure you, humble stranger, to look beyond. I urge you to see that I too, was human. That I too grieved, loved, suffered, lived.

I am more than a pile of bones, I am more than a decayed piece of wood, I am more than a forgotten name. I deserve a burial; I deserve a grave.

So please, allow me the respect I never received in life, and lay my brittle bones down…
…so that they may rest.

Note

Fictive Narrative

Date

November 17, 2025

Creator

Liliana, a sophomore in high school