At first glance I was unsettled by this marker for a 3½ year old child at Calvary Cemetery in Queens. I imagined that “TERERAHO” was code word for “terror” and that this was some kind of political statement aimed at Rwandan genocide.
That potential intrigue was happily dashed after a quick search at Ancestry.com revealed that “Rwanda” is not that uncommon a surname, though Tereraho is somewhat rare. No connection between this child’s death and that faraway country is likely, seeing as the child died oceans away from Rwanda a full decade before the genocide of 1994.
It is not obvious from this marker how the three surnames shown are related, but it is well enough done to let it sit in peace.
Tereraho. Rwanda. Eric T. Rusine.
