His grandfather’s dying wish led to an emotional discovery of 92 forgotten babies

WILLIAMSPORT — A request by an elderly grandfather to check on the family plot in a Williamsport cemetery has resulted in locating where 92 unbaptized Catholic babies were buried in unconsecrated ground.

“The bottom line is people now have a place to go to visit loved ones,” said Michael DiRocco, who spent three years researching and raising money for a monument.

His journey, as he puts it, began in 2020 when his cancer-stricken grandfather Kenneth DiRocco asked him to check on the family plot in Mount Carmel Cemetery because he had been given only two months to live.

The elder DiRocco, who is still alive today, told his grandson he had a brother whose name he did not know buried in unconsecrated ground in that 14-acre cemetery owned by the St. John the Worker Parish in Williamsport.

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