What was the saddest death in your Tree ?

[dee-jay]

if you saw it in one of those cards, you'd say yuck! or I would anyway.

Who's left to say who composed it? 
A printer's instructed what to write.
So much detail is mentioned in 'my' Mildred's card
No disparaging comments can blight!

[Gadget]

Think you might have misunderstood what I was saying dee-jay

[dee-jay]

It matters not if he wrote it or chose it, I can feel a young Sidney Wilcox's pain and anguish in this text following the loss of his wife aged only 26 years from puerperal fever following childbirth:

Day after day we saw her fade,
And gently pass away;
Oh, how we prayed that she would
Longer with us stay.

A light is from our household gone,
A voice we loved is stilled;
A place is vacant in our home,
Which never can be filled.

[MarieC]

Thanks, dee-jay, for introducing this aspect,

And to yourself and Gadget for posting examples.  They are very touching, lovely to read.  I have seen just a very few like this - most of my ancestors seem to have suffered in stoic silence - but I treasure what I have seen. 

It is good to have this dimension to this thread, to show how our ancestors themselves grieved the sadnesses.  Thanks again, dee-jay.

MarieC

[Simon G.]

I was looking at the parish registers for Dry Drayton this morning (got them on fiche today, and couldn't help but run to the library to borrow their reader).  My 4xgreat-grandfather buried three of his children within days of each other...all died from scarlet fever.  Poor guy. 

[kerryb]

Diseases like that must have been devastating for families with many small children, infections go right through families with children these days!

Kerry

[icini]

I had mentioned this poem in one of my posts and thought I owuld put it up.

Ancestor Poem
Your tombstone stands among the rest
Neglected and alone
The name and date are chiseled out
On polished marble stone
It reaches out to all who care
It is too late to mourn
You did not know that I exist
You died and I was born
Yet each of us are cells of you
In flesh, in blood and bone
Our blood contracts and beats a pulse
Entirely not our own
Dear Ancestor, the place you filled
One hundred years ago
Spreads out among the ones you left
Who would have loved you so
I wonder if you lived and loved
I wonder if you knew
That someday I would find this spot
And come to visit you

Author Unknown


Donna

[oldcrone]

This is the saddest so far..... my great-uncle who joined the Royal Flying Corps before WW1 broke out, who was just so keen to learn who to be a pilot (in the early days of navigation).

My great-uncle (ERIC HENRY DOBSON) wasn't from a moneyed family (one where he would have instantly become a commissioned officer) but he obviously was bonkers about flying and wanted to be a pilot.

This is a photo of him (I've already posted it on the Armed Forces board not that long ago).   http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,157548.msg731872.html#msg731872.   I can't seem to stop returning to his photo, which I've only got hold of in the past few years.  Eric died not long after the photo was taken - he was shot down during the Battle of the Somme.  His body was never found and the circumstances of his death never verified. 

I have his Mons Star medal but it seems that his other medals went unclaimed.... his parents couldn't face it?  How could you cope with a death of your 22-year-old son, and you never could have his body to bury?

As a mum, I would rather die....

Clara 

[kitchener]

Nice thoughts in the poem.  I've often wondered what my ancestors and I would really think of each other if we met.  Would we get along?  Given that there are "characters" in my family at present, there must have been some back then, and you start thinking if you would associate with some of them.  I guess that's why we try so hard to make sure our family records are much more than names and dates.  Trying to preserve the human traits as well.