Port Charlotte man gets Civil War era tombstone of baby Gideon back to family

A tombstone discovered in Southwest Florida that dates back to the Civil War is back where it belongs. WINK News first brought you this story in 2020.

A SWFL man discovered the tombstone in his backyard months after purchasing his house. Now, WINK News is speaking to the family of the child to whom the tombstone belonged to.

And for this distant relative, the return of the tombstone means everything. This family traces its history back t least 300 years. The family even has its own board of directors. The family is grateful for the man who found it and thankful that it is now back where it goes on.

It wasn’t a Halloween prop. It was a real headstone that Tom Dipaolo excavated in his backyard. That was in March of 2020.

Who is baby Gideon P? Port Charlotte man finds Civil War era headstone in his yard

“As I was clearing this spot out, the headstone was facing down, and I wasn’t exactly sure what it was, and then I kept brushing off more dirt,” said Dipaolo.

The name on the tombstone is Gideon P. Brubaker, a 21-day-old baby boy who died on September 11, 1863. “Yeah, it was a little surprising at first, and then it started getting interesting. The first thing that came to my mind was that it was a Halloween thing.. but then when I was looking at it closer, I was saying that this is too heavy and it’s too well-made,” Dipaolo said.

Dipaolo searched for the Brubaker family, which, while that was a long shot, it paid off. The Brubakers are a rare family because they have their own historian, Elaine Renkin.

“As soon as he told me the names, told me the name, I had Gideons records,” Renkin said.

The family also has a president, Doug Brubaker. “They came armed with shovels, a bucket of wet concrete, and we set the stone back in place, not that that concrete is going to ever preclude somebody else from stealing it. But it may make it a little tougher,” Brubaker said.

That poor little baby is buried in Page County, Virginia. “The father is there. The mother is there. His sister, who died in 1854, is there. And I knew that Gideon should be there because his stone is identical to his sister. His sister died in 1854,” said Renkin.

How did the tombstone end up in Dipaolo’s backyard? In Port Charlotte? Which is more than 1100 miles away. So when Dipaolo called Renkin, she looked at the family tree and called Gideon’s nearest relative.

“First thing I did is I went to my database, looked up his name, and he was there,” said Renkin. “In my database right now is 24,000 Brubaker’s, okay. We’re all over the world. Concentrated coming out of Lancaster County, though.”

That relative is Brenda Bosserman. “We found the tombstone of your ancestors and my mom’s family. And we need to get it back to you. So that’s kind of how it started,” Bosserman said.

As it turns out, the Brubaker family has a member living in Sarasota. So, she picked up the tombstone from Dipaolo. But it did take several months to transport it back to Virginia due to COVID-19.