Can't for the life of me remember the book but I read an autobiography of a frontier woman (late 1800s, Midwest) who lost a young daughter. She hired a laborer to help her move a stone step from the only primitive church around; she used it as a grave marker for her daughter and carved the name and dates herself. Poignant confession. The settlement knew it was her but didn't act on it. The woman died in the 1920s.