What was the saddest death in your Tree ?

[Mobo]

Makes you realise just how lucky you are.

Tragic, tragic tales, like I said, we don't know how lucky we are these days do we ??

 

[acceber]

My great uncle committed suicide in the 60's when his wife left him. When my mum and I found out it we both found it really sad.
Two of my other great uncles died a month apart from tuberculosis in 1946, the eldest was 23 and the youngest was 13, that was also v.sad to discover.

Acceber

[Possum 26]

One  of the sadest was my grandfather losing his first wife and new born baby on the same day and the next day his eldest son died from drinking kero so losing 1 wife and 2 kids in 36 hours horrendous

I lost many children contracting  scarlet fever coming over to Australia

My g.g. grandfathers son lost 3 wives all due to childbirth

the weirdest    old age 3 days

[PaulaToo]

The death of Granfather Joe.

I was told Grandfather Joseph Bartlett, who was a carpenter/builder, fell off a neighbour's roof, right in front of his young wife and four children. I always thought it was tragic.

The truth was worse.

I have found the poor man was put in an assylum with what sounds suspiciously like a nervous breakdown in todays terms, and died a year later, abandoned by the family, of colitis.

[LibbyW]

I must admit I have been very fortunate, my tree has had no skeletons, no sad deaths until recently....... on a twiglet of my tree a GG Aunt marries  in 1874 they have a son in 1875 her husband appears to disappear, anyway she remarries in church stating she is a widow in 1878 has a child in 1881 dies of heart disease in 1883 aged 29, then her second husband dies a year later in the work house aged 28. We have found her first son but no trace of her daughter!

Libby

[d.weaving]

The following is from my paternal grandfathers bible detailing his first marriage and family.
Harry Weaving aged 23 married Alice Jane Boulton aged 24 in the Parish Church,Pitchcombe,Gloucestershire on Christmas day 1893.
Children.
Walter Edward Weaving born Nov 15th 1894
John Weaving born 16th Oct 1895 at 1pm.
Mary Weaving born 11th August 1896 at 2pm
Arthur William Weaving born 5th Nov 1898 at five minutes to seven.
Deaths.
John Weaving died 16th Oct 1895.
Mary Weaving died 11th August 1896.

After Arthur William was born,the family moved to Birmingham when in 1900 and in the space of 4 months,his wife and his son Arthur William died and my grandfather remarried.
I find the latter very strange.
Derek.

[dee-jay]

Derek
Some time ago [sadly, can't remember the source] I read that in the Victorian era a 3-months' period of mourning for a widower was the 'norm', whereas it was a year and a day for a widow:  such were the inequalities between the sexes!
The needs of a 30 years old widower left with a 6 years old son would have been paramount, particularly if there was an absence of family support in Birmingham - the area to which he had recently moved.
After so much tragedy, Harry would undoubtedly have been very susceptible to any tender-hearted lady of his acquaintance.
 

[perilsofpauline1]

I had often wondered why people re-married soon after a spouse's death, but when you think that there was no welfare system, and you had children to feed and house, is it any wonder?
And I don't know if in the working class they would have observed a mourning period. Middle and upper class, probably, yes. I've got at least half a dozen rellies who married again extremely soon after their spouse died, in two cases to the next door neighbour!!
All of it was very sad, but part of living in that era.
Regards,
Pauline

[Ltudball]

I have three that particularly haunt me. My gg grandmother died of exhaustion and cancerous ulceration of the face and my dad's grandfather was riding in the mineshaft lift when it over wound. He fell to safety but his 14 year old son ,who had just left school, fell all the way down the shaft to his death. My g grandfather fell to his death down a mineshaft and left his wife and three children aged 6,4 and 5 months. Tragic.