These are the heart breaking aspects of our research. When I walk cemeteries, I always stop to talk to the babies who died and had no chance for life. I tell them I love them and remember them. donkelly ----- Original Message ----- From: Sharon Becker <srbecker@iowatelecom.net> To: iowa@rootsweb.com Sent: Tue, 3 Mar 2009 20:10:00 +0000 (UTC) Subject: Re: [IOWA] ilnesses of emigrants There are a lot of deaths from hunting accidents and buggy wrecks among the old obituaries I've been transcribing, Don. And if they wife was young, chances are she died of complications from childbirth. What I find amazing is that if the next wife gave birth to a daughter, odds are high that the couple named the newborn in honor of the deceased wife. I've found that to happen countless times. There's also a German tradition of naming a newborn after an older child who died. If you watch for it - there's a program about the Spanish Influenza Pandemic in 1917 & 1918. The scientists theorized that those who survived were descendants of those who survived the great plagues & black plague of Europe. Embedded in their genetic make up was an antibody which gave them some sort of protection from the Spanish Flu. (Program usually airs on the History Channel or one of those "sister" channels.) I have a webpage for Ringgold County - "Old-Time Medical Terms: Their Definitions & Old-Time Remedies" http://iagenweb.net/ringgold/history/hist-diseases.html Warts must have been a common problem since there's 19 remedies for it! I lost my uncle when he was 6 weeks old to whooping cough and my grandmother talked about him up until her death when she was 93. I lost a great-uncle when he was 2 and an anvil fell on him & he developed pneumonia - long before antibiotics where heard of. This grandmother talked of him up until her death at the age of 97. I have the pencil tracing she did of his hand, done the day before he died. She kept it in her Bible and close to her heart all those years. (Her grandson was gonna throw it into the burn barrel before Mom & I rescued it.) I also have a page for "Old Time Occupations & Professions" http://iagenweb.net/ringgold/history/hist-occupations.html which I found amusing, although it's more of a glossary. Most terms came over from England. Back to diseases, there have been several obituaries that I've transcribed for Ringgold County where the deceased died from injuries received when the stove exploded. Most of the time someone (usually the deceased) was adding kerosene to the fire. So evidently they didn't understand fumes & flames? Then there are several deaths due to the ladies' long skirts and aprons catching fire - or a toddler getting too close to the fire. I remember my grandmother and great-grandmother and mother making lye soap out in the back yard. They had a giant (okay, I was a little kid - it looked like it was huge) cast iron kettle and used a wooden paddle to stir the concoction. I can understand how someone's long skirts could catch fire as most of the lady's attention was focused on stirring the pot or keeping one eye out for the children. If you look at the obituaries for Civil War Veterans, many didn't live to see the turn of the century, most succumbing to diseases contracted while in service which haunted them the rest of their days. Dysentery, typhoid, typhus, pneumonia, and lung disorders seem to be most common. My great-great-great grandfather suffered from what they called the "bloody flux," which eventually killed him in 1898. He never recovered from it. [Sidenote: His wife, my great-great-great grandmother, had her coffin made by a local cabinetmaker & she kept it in her attic for about 30+ years until it was "needed." Tucked inside of the coffin was the dress she wanted to "wear" for her burial. Her wish was granted.] Many farmers died from machinery accidents. Corn-pickers and hay balers and machinery belts claimed more than their fair share of victims. Most of the time (according to my memory and the obituaries), the farmer usually was out working alone and found when he didn't show up for dinner. I recall when I was about 6-years-old, an elderly farmer almost lost his life to a corn picker. It was touch and go for a long, long time. He ended up losing an arm and lived another 10 years. He told us kids that he didn't want an artificial arm. That if God wanted him to be one-armed, who was he to argue with God? [He also kept pink peppermints in his bibbed overall pocket for us kids. We'd flick off the overall lint and then eat the candy. Little bit of overall lint didn't seem to bother us at all.] Sharon R. Becker Ringgold County IAGenWeb Coordinator srbecker@iowatelecom.net ----- Original Message ----- From: "donkelly" <ocollaugh@comcast.net> To: <iowa@rootsweb.com> Sent: Tuesday, March 03, 2009 12:06 PM Subject: [IOWA] ilnesses of emigrants > It seems lots of people died of illnesses in Iowa, and not from just > smallpox alone. Some could have frozen to death of course. > In my research I found several places where ancestors just dissapeared > between census, or two or more family members died in the same week or > month, so I started paying more attention to diseases that killed yours > and > mine. > A new section of my county website deals with this subject. > http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~iadesmoi/Illness/illnesses.htm > > I hope this may help someone. > > donkelly > _____________________________________________ For additional information concerning how the list works, how to sub and unsub and list rules, visit http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~richard/ialist/ _____________________________________________ ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to IOWA-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

Our ancestors were a brave lot. In my research, and I am sure others found it as well, many of our ancestors had babies that they buried and then left to go west or buried babies along the way. How heartbreaking for these mothers to have to bury their child and then move on, never to visit the graves again. I remember reading some journals from a friends ancestor whose daughter migrated west to Indiana in the late 1820's. Her mother received a rare letter several years later asking her to visit the graves of her babies she left behind, so they would know they weren't forgotten. Nancy