On a rainy morning at the Desert Lawn Cemetery in Calimesa, east of Los Angeles, a tiny white coffin rests on a lace-draped bier, surrounded by pink and white roses, carnations and lilies, and one bouquet trailing a purple ribbon embossed in gold with the words Darling Angeline.

Forty-five mourners have gathered on this dreary morning to bury a baby none of them knew. As they take their seats, splashing fountains in a weed-choked lake compete with the rain, and a covey of white ceremonial doves coo in wicker hampers, waiting to be released. In the front row of folding metal chairs, a brown-eyed woman sits next to her husband and two of her three children, dabbing her eyes. Then, just after 11, Pastor Robert Jackson of Corona Temple of Faith Church begins the eulogy. "God," he intones, "we ask that you will bless now those who have come here to witness the home-going of Angeline."

It has been said that the death of any child is an affront to the natural order of things. But this one, which took place two months before in the city of Compton, 70 miles to the west, seems even more so. No nursery was ever decorated in anticipation of the baby girl's birth, and no joyful announcements were sent out by proud parents heralding her arrival. This infant's life ended brutishly only minutes after it began.

After giving birth in the rest room of an L.A. gas station, her teenage mother cut the newborn's umbilical cord with a pair of scissors, put her in a trash can and then tried to flee as the baby bled to death. "A service station attendant went in there, saw the mess and called the paramedics," says L.A. County coroner's investigator Doyle Tolbert. "The baby was dead. Mother wasn't far away."

Perhaps even more horrifying is the fact that Angeline's death was far from an isolated incident. Every year in Los Angeles, between 10 and 15 lifeless babies are retrieved by police from toilet stalls, Dumpsters and highway rest-stop areas. Nationwide, there may be hundreds of such cases annually (including that of New Jersey teen Brian Peterson Jr., released from prison Jan. 4 after serving 18 months for the well-publicized manslaughter death of the infant he fathered with Amy Grossberg). Most of these infants are unidentified, many are never claimed. But for the past three years, thanks to the efforts of the brown-eyed woman in the front row at the service—Debi Faris, a 44-year-old suburban Yucaipa housewife, former substitute teacher and mother of three—these throwaway children are being given a name, a bit of dignity and the simple acknowledgment that, however fleetingly, they once lived.

Nearly three dozen times in the past several years, Faris has traveled in her blue 1996 Plymouth Voyager to several county morgues, where she claims the bodies of these young victims, places them in small coffins and presides over their funerals with the help of people like Carole Adams, owner of the White Wings Ceremony company, who donates her doves, and the hardened homicide cops who sit solemnly at graveside, sometimes with tears in their eyes. "In our office we deal with the dirty part—having the baby picked up, attending autopsies," says Detective Christine Ruedos of the LAPD's child-abuse unit. But when she and her partner attended one funeral, it allowed them to "deal with the little victim in a more spiritual way. It was emotional. And it was good for us."

That reaction hardly surprises Carol-Lee Thorpe, an administrator at St. Francis Medical Center in Lynwood, which staffs a 24-hour hot line for desperate young mothers who don't want their newborns. Faris's work "takes my breath away," says Thorpe. "It's wonderful to see people who are touched in a certain way and act on what touches their heart. If everybody did that, the world would work a bit better." While appreciative of such comments, Faris, who plans to hold her next funeral on Jan. 15 for an abandoned newborn boy, sees little reason for accolades. "It is an honor to be able to care for these children," she says. "I used to think it was a gift to the child, but it's really not. It's a gift back to me, I think."

The path to that realization began one spring evening in 1996. While preparing dinner for her family—husband Mark, 48, vice president of a firm that manufactures golf course sprinkler systems, and their three kids, Brandon, now 22, Ryan, 19, and Jessica, 14—Faris saw a television news report about a baby boy found dead and stuffed in a duffel bag beside a San Pedro freeway. "It stopped me in my tracks," she recalls. "From that point on I just couldn't get the vision of this little boy out of my mind." Along with that troubling image came a more immediate concern: "I thought, 'What's going to happen to him? Who's going to bury him?' "

Three days later, Faris called her local police department, which referred her to Gilda Tolbert, who, like her husband, Doyle, is an investigator with the L.A. County coroner's office. "I was so scared I could hardly speak," recalls Faris. "I told her, 'I'm just a woman from Yucaipa who heard about this child, and I have been touched in my heart by him.' " Faris learned that if investigators could not locate a willing relative, abandoned babies were cremated, their ashes placed in a cardboard box and stored in a county warehouse for up to three years.

If they remain unclaimed, Doyle Tolbert said, the ashes would be buried in a county plot alongside, among others, "murderers, drug dealers and prostitutes." That information horrified Faris. "I told Gilda that this child didn't deserve that, and that if nobody else came forward, I'd like to be responsible for burying him and giving him a name."

Convinced of Faris's sincerity after a background check, Tolbert phoned three weeks later to tell her that the body of a strangled baby boy had just been found in a Dumpster. Within a week, Gilda called again. This time, recalls Faris, "she said, 'Well, Debi, we also have a little girl. We think she's about 2. Found washed up on a beach in Malibu. Will you care for her too?' " It was only then, says Faris, that the emotional enormity of her undertaking became clear. "I sat at my table and just cried," she says. "I didn't think I could do this. It's very painful, and I didn't know if I had the strength. But I came to terms with it. I made a commitment."

Today, proof of that commitment can be found in the Garden of Angels, a small section of the Desert Lawn Cemetery purchased with a $295.38 down payment from money the Farises had saved for a new car. (Donors later provided the rest of the $27,375 purchase price.) In August 1996 the plot accepted its first three burials—babies Faris named Matthew, Nathan and Dora. (Though county ordinance forbids the naming of a child by a stranger, Faris enters names on copies of the death certificates as a commemorative gesture.) Since then, there have been 34 others.

"Tela Rose, in the back there, was found in a Dumpster behind a bank," said Faris on a recent visit, gesturing toward the small wooden crosses in the Garden of Angels, each decorated with a pink or blue heart. "Stephanie Marie was found in a plastic bag in the back of an alley. Michael was about 2 weeks old, and he was found in a trash can. He tried crawling to the top and was out of his diaper when he was found." She pauses. "Horrible ways for children to die."

Few understand the horror better than Faris herself. On the Wednesday before baby Angeline's funeral, Faris made the now-familiar trip to the L.A. County coroner's office. Donning a long plastic apron and surgical gloves, she entered a room outfitted with stainless-steel tables and gurneys. There, a staffer handed her a doll-size bundle covered in plastic. Faris gently unwrapped the tiny corpse and enfolded it in a pink receiving blanket, held the baby lovingly for a few minutes and said a silent prayer for the child and its mother. Then she placed it in a small white coffin, tucked in a pink knitted lamb and closed the lid. Said Faris later, outside: "This is the worst place. It is hell on earth."

For the strength to keep making such visits, Faris, raised in Oregon by her father, Dale Thurman, 65, who operated heavy construction equipment, and his wife, Elaine, 61, relies on the support of her family. "I know that Debi's work hurts her, and I try to be a sounding place for her when it becomes hard," says Elaine, who lives in Eugene, Ore., and speaks with her regularly by phone. Adds Mark Faris, Debi's husband of 23 years: "Our concern, of course, is the amount of anguish this work creates for her. But Debi's the type who, when she gets onto something, nothing stops her." When the pain becomes overwhelming, "my mom cries sometimes," says Jessica. "But we help her through it."

They aren't the only ones. A corps of about 20 volunteers supports Faris's mission, which is privately funded. "Senior citizens crochet receiving blankets," says Judy Sturlaugson, a professional cake decorator and Faris's volunteer coordinator, "and high school children come to help when we have [funerals and prayer services] at the Garden."

But Faris's involvement doesn't end at the cemetery gate. Working with the L.A. district attorney's office, she is lobbying now for passage of a California state bill, mirroring programs in several states—including, as of just this month, Minnesota—that would allow any mother to leave her newborn at a designated emergency facility without threat of criminal prosecution. "The purpose is to encourage women to choose life for their babies," says Faris, who makes a point of appearing at court proceedings involving mothers indicted for abandoning infants. Two years ago, for example, she was present for the arraignment of the mother of an infant named Leilani, who had been found strangled and left in a trash bin. The mother, a 21-year-old college honors student charged with murder, child abuse and endangerment, eventually accepted a plea bargain and was sentenced to five years in prison. "When I was in that courtroom nobody mentioned the baby," says Faris, who sees herself as an advocate. "The only woman they mentioned was the mother. I represent the child."

At first, Faris felt nothing but anger toward the young women. But after consulting her pastor, "I started praying for the mothers instead of cursing them," she says. In December 1998, she received a message on her answering machine from a young woman who, drug-addicted and believing her baby had been stillborn, abandoned him in a toilet. "I know that my baby is buried at the Garden of Angels," the message said. Faris put together a scrapbook from the infant's memorial service and returned the mother's call.

The next morning, she found the young woman on a bench at the Garden. "She looked up to me, and she was crying," Faris recalls. "She said, 'He died a year ago today.' The woman was 22 or 23. She had had her hair done, put on makeup and a long skirt with nylons and nice shoes. This was an event for her, to come out and pay her respects to her child. And when she left, she went over and kissed his cross. I hope that she was climbing out of her despair. I hope every mother can come back and find their child at the Garden."

Yet she understands that not all will. Investigator Doyle Tolbert says that Angeline's grandparents have not returned his calls, and the baby's mother, a minor, has shown no interest. Still, for every family that washes its hands of one of these babies, there are ready surrogates to take their place—like the nearly four dozen people who have come to Angeline's funeral in response to the small notice Faris placed in the San Bernardino County Sun: "A graveside service will be conducted at 11 a.m. Saturday at Desert Lawn Cemetery in Calimesa for an infant girl found abandoned in Los Angeles."

One who responded is Martha Holloway, 68, who crocheted the green blanket draping Angeline's coffin and now knits the blankets, hats and booties Faris uses to dress the dead babies. Holloway, who has driven up from San Diego with her husband, Ken, 68, has a personal reason for attending. Forty years ago the Holloways' 2-year-old daughter Debbie died of viral pneumonia. "We found her quite ill one morning, and by evening she was gone," says Martha. "This was the first baby funeral we have been to since we lost our little Debbie. It was very painful for me."

After the service, when most of those present have filed silently to their cars, Faris stands under an umbrella as cemetery workers prepare to lower Angeline into her grave. As the coffin is placed in the earth between a cross marked Asher and another for Angela Lynn, the only sounds are the drumming of rain on a canvas tarp overhead and the drone of traffic on the I-10 freeway. "Things catch our attention, and yet we are so busy that we just keep walking," says Faris. "This was one thing I couldn't walk away from."

Susan Schindehette
John Hannah in Los Angeles

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