Behind every headstone at Syracuse’s Oakwood Cemetery is a story, a piece of the city’s history.

In one of the historic cemetery’s older sections, stands a heartbreaking memorial to a young woman, Ella Rosa Burt, who passed away on Feb. 17, 1872, at just 19 years old.

Her ornate tombstone features a woman sitting, her hands in her lap, cradling a bouquet of flowers.

The head of the statue is sadly missing, perhaps the result of long-ago vandalism or simply the passage of time. It’s one of several monuments in every cemetery that have lost pieces or fallen apart over time.

This led us to wonder about who this young woman was and whether anyone knows what happened to the missing head.

We know Ella Rosa Burt was the eldest daughter to a prominent Syracuse family.

The news of her illness

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