17-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Thursday, April 4, 1912:I heard today of the death of a girlfriend. She died last evening I have not seen her for a long, long time. She was a member of my Sunday School class.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
I wonder what happened. It sounds as if the girl had been ill for awhile since Grandma hadn’t seen her in a long time.
My gut feeling is that the girl had juvenile diabetes. Insulin was not available until the 1920’s, and it was relatively common for youth to die of diabetes in the early 1900s. But it might have been an infection . . . or pneumonia . . . or tuberculosis . . . or . . .
I wish Grandma had included a name–though the girl probably wasn’t previously mentioned in the diary.
I bet you could figure out who it was if you looked through old obituaries. Girl around your grandma’s age, died April 11/12, 1912… Wouldn’t be too hard to find her, assuming they did put notice in a newspaper.
That’s a good idea. It’s always tedious looking through the microfilms of the local paper–but I had been thinking that I should dive into them again. It would be really help me focus to be looking for something in particular. If I find the obituary, I’ll tell you about it in a future post.
My Grandmother was born in1900, so was very close in age to yours. I enjoy reading your posts and thinking about how my GM might have lived back then 🙂
Thanks for stopping by. It’s always wonderful to hear when someone enjoys this site.
Some of the most tragic things happen on bright, sunny days, not like the movies where it’s usually raining. I hope you can find her obit.
It would have been sobering for her to hear of a young friend’s death. (my guess would be TB.) hope the hunt for the obituary is successful.
You might be right–TB was relatively common back then. I’ll let you know if I find anything.