As the Irish say, "C'mere til I tell ye" a story of sickness related to this photo. These three boys were my maternal grandmother's brothers. The oldest one is Boyd, the middle one Noel and the youngest one Hoyt. When Noel was about four and Hoyt two, they caught diphtheria, one from the other (I don't know who had it first). Tragically, both boys died. Naturally, their deaths were very hard on their mother and daddy, and on their big brother Boyd, too. But it was their daddy who took it the hardest. Their mother had to be the brave one as the daddy had a nervous breakdown over it. The little boys were buried -- we don't know exactly where, somewhere in Erath County, TX. Their daddy never could go visit their graves, it was just too hard on him. In fact, they moved from Erath County to Lamar County soon thereafter.
My grandmother was born the year after they died, and then another sister three years later. When my grandmother was still very small, she (Granny) contracted diphtheria. According to the story she used to tell, her daddy nearly fell apart, horrified at the prospect of losing yet another child to this same evil killer. They had a most wonderful doctor, Dr. Grant, who came out to the house and sat with Granny and took care of her until the crisis was over. With all credit given to God, she survived and lived to be 95 years old, passing away just last year (2008).
The story, although I've told it badly, is really a very emotional one. When Granny used to tell it, it was obvious it was something that had colored all her family's lives, even hers and her sister's, though they were born after the little boys' deaths. Her daddy (DeDaddy, as the grandkids all called him) lived to be very old, and was a sweet, loving Christian man, but could never, ever discuss what had happened to the little boys or even mention them. Her oldest brother Boyd struggled with depression all his life, no doubt some of which was triggered by that traumatic childhood loss. When it comes up now (primarily within the context of my family history research) my mother can hardly stand to speak of it, and even I get teary eyed thinking about poor little Hoyt and Noel and their devastated mother and daddy (and brother!).
It would be lovely to know where their graves were so we could pay our respects to them in this, the 100th anniversary year of their deaths. But the location is lost to us now. My grandmother never knew, so obviously Mom doesn't know. Mother's cousin Glenda (Boyd's daughter) doesn't know, either. Glenda's son Paul and I have been trying to find out, but have run up against brick walls in locating anything via the Internet. I managed to find Hoyt's death certificate online (and discovered his name was John Hoyt), but found nothing at all for little Noel. It's almost as though he never existed. And there is no mention at all of any burial site.
Of course, there's always the option of checking with the Erath County clerk's office vital records information, but that has to be done either in person or via special request, and there are fees involved. I hate to spend money for something that may not even exist. Someday, though, I plan to make a trip up there and just see what I can find.
So, anyway, I guess today we still have our equivalents of those "terror diseases" that used to haunt our forebears -- there's still meningitis, encephalitis, those kinds of things. And now we have MRSV, E-coli, potentially swine flu (excuse me, "H1N1" or "N1H1" or whatever), there was SARS ... and any number of things we haven't heard of yet. For many of these we have successful medicines. For others we don't. As a mother, it sometimes scares me to death. But, just like those mothers a hundred years ago, that's when I remember that God is the same, He never changes, and I can still put my trust in Him.
Think I'll go get another throat lozenge.
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