This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: Killey Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/kFB.2ACI/1938.1.1.1.1 Message Board Post: Hi--wow. That sounds pretty traumatic--having to leave your house because of black diptheria? is that what they called it? I've heard of plain diptheria, but never before "black" diptheria. The relative in question died after 1920 but before 1930 (a broad range, but this is based on census records--and likely even died by 1925, because his widow remarried, had children, etc. by 1930) so I wonder if maybe he had the same thing that your mom recalled--the black diptheria. One of my aunts, a child in the '40s, recalled being quarantined for scarlet fever. Aren't we lucky to not have had to deal with that kind of thing. Thank you for the insight on the illness--I'll do some more checking, maybe your black dypheria is what this relative died from.