Now, THAT'S the Dennie we all know and love! Welcome back, Dennie! I don't have any information on this Jenny, but if it will cheer you up, I'll happily make something up and bribe some town clerk to enter it into the public records for you! (We've been doing that for years in the hopes you would apply for the DAR, and then we could scandalize you at the ceremony by revealing your documents were faulty.) I was pretty sure you were going to make it, since during my prayer times I kept getting this picture of God shaking His head and telling a gathering of angels that He "wasn't sure heaven could take Dennie just yet." Plus, I think He also decided we hadn't been punished down here enough, so He was leaving you here to harass us a bit longer. (Just in case it doesn't translate, I inserted a smiley face winking right here.) Seriously, Dennie, it is so very good to hear from you again. Do please take it slow! I still have number of you on my prayer list, and would love to see any health updates you've got...with apologies to the pure genealogists among us. Warmest regards, Randy PS. I keep getting notes on the side from people who are irritated about the non-genealogy posts. I'd just like to say I would kill for ANY KIND OF WRITING from my ancestors, and I can't help but believe that the personal exchanges we've shared here for years will be welcome to our descendants doing their genealogies someday. Maybe, maybe not. Though I keep them to a minimum these days (we were really "bad" in the old days when Jerry, Allen, Tim, Barbekay, Donna, DD, and all the old gang cranked this thing up. I used to spend hours laughing at how weird the rest of you were and how utterly normal I am... (smiley face w/ sunglasses here.) Not to worry; I'll slip back up to the rafters and be quiet again soon. In a message dated 7/6/2008 1:38:23 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, [email protected] writes: First off I want to thank you for all your warm support and prayers. My survival was truly a miracle. You guys are the greatest. The doctors say it will take a year or so for me to get back to my old self but considering that all odds were against me living, I will gladly wait. I don't have higher level cognitive skills. My typing is slow and error prone. My endurance is well... pitiful. BUT I am not complaining! I am extremely grateful to be alive and functioning. Secondly, right after I got home I was contacted by a distant Kilgore cousin. She is really just getting started in her research. Our common ancestors are John B. Kilgore b.1855 Grundy Co. TN d.1903 (?? no death record in TN or AL) Mary E. Hart b. 18 Mar 1861 Tracy City, Grundy Co. TN d. 27 Oct 1932 Birmingham, AL Robin's ancestor was, their oldest child Jennie "Ana" Kilgore b. Feb 29 1880 in TN She died 21 Oct 1918 in Craig County, Oklahoma Per her death certificate: The Cause of Death: Bronchial Pneumonia Duration: 6 days Contributory: Influenza Secondary: Pellagra Jennie died in a mental hospital. She had pellagra. Apparently she got influenza in the mental hospital and quickly died. The main results of pellagra can easily be remembered as "the four D's": diarrhea, dermatitis, dementia, and death. In the early 1900s <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1900s>, pellagra reached epidemic proportions in the American South. There were 1,306 reported pellagra deaths in South Carolina during the first ten months of 1915. The traditional food preparation method of corn, nixtamalization <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixtamalization>, by native New World <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_World> cultivators, who had domesticated corn, required treatment of the grain with lime <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcium_hydroxide>, an alkali <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alkali>. It has now been shown that the lime treatment makes niacin nutritionally available and reduces the chance of developing pellagra. When corn cultivation was adopted worldwide, this preparation method was not accepted because the benefit was not understood. The original cultivators, often heavily dependent on corn, did not suffer from pellagra. Pellagra became common only when corn became a staple that was eaten without the traditional treatment. The influenza pandemic of 1918-1919 killed more people than the Great War, known today as World War I (WWI), at somewhere between 20 and 40 million people. It has been cited as the most devastating epidemic in recorded world history. More people died of influenza in a single year than in four-years of the Black Death Bubonic Plague from 1347 to 1351. Known as "Spanish Flu" or "La Grippe" the influenza of 1918-1919 was a global disaster. My direct ancestor was Mae Kilgore, Jennie's younger sister. Anyway, I have been trying to find Jennie on the 1900 and 1910 census records. No trace of her. All Robin has is the death certificate. I have not found a record of her marriage to Charles W. Nelson (1873-1922). I haven't found him in the 1920 census or their daughter Willie (Carol) Jessie Nelson born March 17, 1904 in McAlester, OK. Eventually the family moved to California, perhaps during the dust bowls. I had absolutely nothing but a name and year of birth for Jennie, so I am thrilled to have this new contact but frustrated! Any ideas? Since the family was Chikamaka Cherokee I am a bit surprised they were living in the center of the Choctaw Nation. Cousin Dennie ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message **************Gas prices getting you down? Search AOL Autos for fuel-efficient used cars. (http://autos.aol.com/used?ncid=aolaut00050000000007)