'These little angels need a little Christmas.' Davis County woman decorates children's cemetery

BOUNTIFUL — A Davis County woman has kept up a Christmas tradition for about 10 years that's touched the hearts of many families.

Each year, Valarie Hooper and her family decorate a section of the Bountiful City Cemetery known as "Baby Land." It's where young children and infants are buried, many of whom never got to celebrate Christmas.

"I've never told anybody," Hooper said.

Up until now, the annual tradition has been kept a secret.

"We usually do it before Thanksgiving," she said.

Hooper wasn't the first person to string Christmas lights, put up signs and stick candy canes around the headstones.

She first noticed the decorations years ago when she was visiting her parents' graves at the cemetery. She attended a ribbon-cutting for a statue placed at Baby Land, where she met the woman responsible for the display.

"She announced then that she was not going to decorate the graves anymore, and I just could not have that happen," Hooper said.

For nearly a decade, she and her family have committed a day each year to decorating the area.

"We try to bring the light to the heavy hearts," Hooper's sister, Theresa Hill, said. "It's a hole that they'll carry for a long time."

Every headstone has its own candy cane memorializing each child buried here.

"Some never, ever got a chance to celebrate Christmas with their loved ones," Hooper said.

Brandon and Jesse Menlove often visit their son, Easton's grave in Baby Land. The first time they saw the section lit up for the holidays, they were touched. Their son would have turned 8 this year.

"It was his due date, August 14, and the doctors couldn't find his heartbeat," Jesse Menlove said. "We found out just then that he was going to be a stillborn. We delivered him the next day, and he was a perfect little angel. We like to say he's too perfect for this world."

When they came to visit where he was buried around Christmas time, they found the place completely decorated for the holidays.

"It brought so much joy to me in such a terrible, sad time. I wanted to know who did it, but I didn't know how to find out," Jesse Menlove said.

She found out through a friend that Hooper was behind the moving light display.

"It just so happened that one of my clients that I worked on and did lashes on, her mom was the one that did it," she said.

Now, they decorate the gravesite together.

"You read every name," Jesse Menlove said. "Now we have three healthy kids at home, and so we get to come and celebrate and visit our son and sing him carols."

Inevitably, another mother will stop by while they decorate. Hill recalls one particular interaction.

"The mother stopped in the car and she waved me over and rolled down her window, and she's like, 'So it's you that does this?' And I said, 'Yes.' And she said, 'My baby is over there, and I just want to tell you how much comfort it gives me that you guys care enough to come out and give love and light to my child,'" Hill said.

It's personal for Hooper, too. She has two grandchildren buried here.

"I drive by every day to make sure all the lights are working and no candy canes are down, and that's when I stop and talk to them," Hooper said.

She admits it's sad when the lights come down, but she knows they'll shine brightly again next year.

"The love that is given when you do have a child will go on forever, even if they are not in your arms," she said.

Hooper said she'll keep decorating Baby Land until she physically can't anymore. And when that happens, she'll pass on the tradition to her daughter and the Menlove family.

Both families said they welcome anyone who wants to help decorate to reach out to them for next year.

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