Local mom reunited with infant who passed 65 years ago

(MADISON, Ind.) – A mother’s love is never-ending and lives on long after a child has passed away. 

A Madison family witnessed that during an incerdibly touching moment this past week. 

James and Loretta Horn got married locally in 1960 and moved out to New Mexico due to James being stationed there for the military. 

While living in New Mexico, the couple welcomed their first children. They had twin boys named James Jr. and Jeffrey on May 10, 1961.

Sadly, Jeffrey passed away a few days later and was buried in Roswell, New Mexico. 

The couple had two more children and eventually moved back to Southeast Indiana. 

Loretta could never forget about the baby boy that was left behind in New Mexico. 

Earlier this year, James Sr. passed away at the age of 90. He had served 20 years in the Air Force and had tours in the Vietnam and Korea Wars. He was buried at the Indiana Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Madison. 

Welty Funeral Home arranged that funeral and a few months later Loretta’s daughter, Teresa, approached the funeral home with a request. 

She asked if it was possible to have baby Jeffrey exhumed, transferred from New Mexico back to Indiana, cremated and buried alongside his father. 

The funeral home made that happen and Jeffrey returned to Madison this past week. 

Brye Welty owns the funeral home and asked Loretta if she wanted to hold her baby one more time, more than six decades after he passed away. 

“As a daughter and mother myself, these moments are heartbreaking and beautiful all at once. 65 years is a lifetime, but a mother’s love doesn’t measure time the way the rest of the world does. No matter how many years pass, her child is still her baby,” said her daughter, Teresa Dickerson. 

Baby Jeffrey has been laid to rest next to his father and Loretta also has a plot next to Jeffrey and James whenever that time comes. 

“These pictures capture something words will never fully explain: a mother holding her son, a love that never left, and a goodbye that came 65 years later,” Teresa said.