52 Ancestors Week 9: Gone Too Soon

+23 votes
1.4k views

From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 9

The theme for Week 9 is "Gone Too Soon." How much time is enough? Just a little bit more...  This week is a good time to write about someone who you'd like to have a little (or a lot) more time with.

I'm fully expecting feels this week. Handing out tissues. 
in The Tree House by Chris Ferraiolo G2G6 Pilot (880k points)

20 Answers

+21 votes
Just posted a note in the Chat about an old friend of 50 years I recently said good-bye to. I thought he might be a "notable" by Wiki standards but, he wasn't. Maybe he wanted it that way. You can still find plenty of info on him if you Google "Blue Hell" or Rapid Ronnie Runyun. A mentor of mine in many ways.
by K Smith G2G6 Pilot (454k points)
Condolences, man. =( I think I said as much in the Weekend Chat. If not, condolences.
All part of the deal I suppose. He always said you got to take the good w/ the bad. The last time I saw him was at his ex-daughter-in-law's funeral who happened to be an ex-coworker of mine. We worked together about a year before we made the connection b/c she went by her maiden name.
Sounds like a good guy. Sorry, man.
I would liken him to a Marvin Heemyer kind of guy. If he was in your corner, you didn't need anyone else. If he was your opposition, you probably way underestimated the situation.
+25 votes

My cousin Gloria Miller http://wikitree.com/wiki/Miller-56622 was 73 when she died but it must still hurt because I'm crying while I'm writing this even though she passed away in 2009.  She was my genealogy buddy for nearly 30 years. How I wish she was still living.  Here's a photo I took of Gloria in 1985 in Florida with her dog Buffy.

by Pat Miller G2G6 Pilot (265k points)
Great pic and story Pat. It reminds me that I really need to get a genealogy buddy. Sorry for your loss my friend.

Thank you, John, for your very kind comment.heart

Wonderful photo of your cousin Gloria Miller with her beautiful dog Pat
Thank you, Susan.  Gloria really wanted to have a DNA test but she didn't live long enough for the prices to come down.
Pat, thank you for reminding me of another one of the things we have in common. Being an only child can make a great bond with cousins. Thank you for sharing your photo of Gloria.

So true, Alexis.  heart

+25 votes
This one is easy for me to write about. While there have been many people that were either in my life or should have been but they were gone too soon, the person who I automatically think of is my Dad ([[Macklem-10|Thomas William Macklem (1935-1977)]]).

My Dad was the third child and third son of my grandparents. Unknown at the time, he was born with two genetic illnesses: Polycystic Kidney Disease (PKD) and Neurofibromatosis. Both were spontaneous mutations. PKD was only discovered after I, the youngest child, was born. It causes a variety of ailments but primarily affects the function of the kidneys, and approximately 50% of the children will inherit it. (My Dad must have had super genes because out of 5 children only one of my sisters did not inherit it, but that is another story.) At the age of 41, my Dad was still working full time but his kidneys were failing. Kidney transplants were happening but were not very common so dialysis was the only option. I don’t know what my Dad thought about all this but I knew he cared about his family and was still trying to provide for them. Then, one very hot Friday in July, my Dad came home from work and collapsed in the front hallway. I was next door at a friends. I remember two paramedics carrying my Dad down our steep concrete steps to the stretcher waiting beside the ambulance. It was the last time I saw my Dad alive. I was 12. On Saturday he turned 42 and by early Monday morning he was gone. His funeral was on Friday and it was raining at the cemetery. I didn’t even know that he was sick. I will miss him for the rest of my life. He was definitely gone too soon.
by Liza Gervais G2G6 Pilot (526k points)

  I have no words.  I essentially "lost" my father when I was three, even though he was still alive for decades afterwards, but I still felt the loss.
I lost my Mum in 2004, and I still talk to her every day.

I think my Mum would have understood your loss, as her father died when she was six, and her mother two years later.  Grandma Dolly died of Bright's Disease (chronic nephritis, these days termed ESRD or ESKD, and would be treated by dialysis until a kidney transplant was possible.  Back in the 1930s, however . . . 
(I keep trying to say more, so I'll "quit while ahead".)

  

edited to correct text

Melanie, I am so sorry for the loss of your father. Your poor mother, such a traumatic childhood! I hope that she had loving, caring extended family around her.

Like your grandma Dolly, my Dad suffered complete kidney failure (ESRD). He was supposed to have started dialysis in September. His own doctor was on holidays and the replacement doctor never realized exactly how sick my Dad was. His ESRD lead to a heart attack on that fateful Friday. He never regained consciousness. There was a coroners inquiry after his death but we were never told the outcome.

Mum was raised by her maternal grandmother, and a "maiden aunt".  Her only sibling was handed off to another aunt and her husband, so he grew up surrounded by family.

I know about dialysis, and how it can prolong life (I acted as my late husband's dialysis technician / nurse for seven years (he was not a candidate for transplant)) and do wish it had been a thing when my grandparents were still living.  Mum felt the lack all her life.  She missed not only her father, and her mother, but her brother, too.

My "loss" re father was that he deserted us, leaving Mum to raise we kids on her own (my one sibling wasn't even a year old).  She worked two jobs to keep us together (she'd had offers to adopt one or other of us but believed it would be wrong to separate us), so we saw little of her during the week.  But we survived.  We believe Mum died alone by her own choice - because my son had been with her the entire day, and it wasn't until he left to go shower and change clothes that she finally "let go".  I was 9500 miles away, across the Pacific Ocean, and I knew long before I got a phone call to say she'd gone.

I will forever be a proponent of dialysis as a life saver (and it gets me all fired up when I see "celebrities" saying that they need a transplant to save their life.  No, no they don't.  A transplant may lengthen the life they have, but dialysis is what saves it.  (Now I really need to get off my soapbox.  Sorry 'bout that.)

removed extra word - where DID that come from‽

Melanie, I know all about dialysis. It keeps you alive. It is a hard way to live for some and not that bad for others, but it lets you live!

I was on home hemodialysis for exactly 25 months before my Liver-Kidney transplant in May 2014. I’m almost 9 years post-transplant now. My late sister Marie (in Birmingham, England) and my late brother Russell (in Orillia, Ontario) were both on dialysis also. My brother Neil was able to get a kidney from his wife so he managed to bypass dialysis. I live in Ottawa, Ontario, but had to have my surgery in Toronto where I was born.
=( So sorry, Lis.

Don't worry about the rant, Mel. Rants are welcome in these 52Ancestors threads.

I'll be writing a blog about my grandpa Marco who passed away when I was four. Still have quite a bit to say about that, ya know. He'd be in his 90s today.

Home Hemo rules! heart  

I'm so sorry.
+22 votes
I just attended the funeral of my aunt (and godmother) earlier this month. She was my mother's only sister; they were born after 12 boys in a row. My aunt, being the youngest, raised her family in the same home where she and her siblings grew up. Whenever we headed "down home" for vacations, she would be the first stop. The door was always open and the kettle always on, no matter what time of day or night the travellers would pull into the driveway. I always secretly wished that she had been my mother and that I lived closer to all my cousins, instead of being the one "from away". She and I shared a love of family history; I was the recorder on paper but she was the one who drew everyone home for several wonderful family reunions and many more smaller gatherings. She was the glue that kept our large extended family together, instilling pride in our roots and a love for all things Cape Breton.
by Donna Henley G2G6 Mach 3 (31.3k points)
+19 votes

She was gone long before I was born, but it saddens me that my great-great-grandmother Katherine (Beals) Stetson didn't have more time with her children. She died, apparently from appendicitis, at age 27, leaving three young children, the youngest of which was my great-grandmother who was only 2 years old. I think that appendicitis probably was almost invariably fatal in 1863, and it probably was a miserable way to die.

by Ellen Smith G2G Astronaut (1.7m points)
Two of my great aunts died young from appendicitis in the early 1900s, so I never got to know them. My great grandfather made the rest of the kids have their appendix removed as a precaution. Seems to run in my dad's family.
+25 votes

This really hits home for me and the timing of this question is especially hard.  Starting Jan 2018, for three and a half years, my entire life consisted of juggling two tasks

  1. managing my husband's care to ensure that the professional services provided the support he needed to recover from a cardiac arrest.  This included futile efforts to prevent 4 separate instances of medical malpractice that he suffered (the first caused the cardiac arrest to begin with), fighting medicare and the VA on 9 occasions to get services he was entitled to and needed, and arranging long distance medical transport (2 800 mile flights and 1 350 mile ambulance ride)
  2. doing his physical therapy between therapist visits for 2 years, then physically caring for him for one year, and finally visiting him daily in a nursing home for the last six months when covid restrictions permitted.

In my so-called "spare time", I cooked, cleaned, did yard work on 6 1/2 acres, paid the bills, and took care of 2 huge dogs and 1 cat.  I once calculated the total time of my daily chores and it added up to 19 hours.

He was under hospice care in the nursing home when I got the news of his death by phone at 7:00 AM on a Sunday in Jun 2021.  I asked if any of his organs were in good enough condition to be donated, which was something very important to him.  That's when they told me that he died during the night and organs need to be harvested immediately ... so that meant that he was completely alone when he died.

Since then, the impediments to handling everything has continued.  When I told USAA and asked them to change our joint account (with credit card, home, and car insurance) to my name, they immediately closed it, cancelling all the insurance plus my credit card at a time when I had no idea what kinds of bills I would immediately be facing.  They insisted on opening a new account for me and set up new insurance there, plus applied for a new credit card, but that took 3 weeks to arrive.  I had similar problems with banks and lawyers, having to cope with issues in 4 states.

By far the most difficult was arranging his funeral service, which is finally about to happen at Arlington National Cemetery Mar 23 (2023!) at 11 AM (in case anyone in that area would like to attend).  The military, after having me wait a year before they were ready to schedule it, told me that if the family wants to forego the honors to which he is entitled they could "expedite" the date.  I was furious at that insult and wrote to my senators and congressman, but none ever responded, although one added me to their mailing list sending weekly messages about what they're doing for me, their constituent, and by the way would I like to donate to their campaign.  When Arlington finally scheduled it, they said I have to bring "the ceremonial flag" when I come.  I said I don't have one, they said the funeral home that initiated the arrangements should have provided it, so that started another battle from 2200 miles away (I moved from AL to CA in the meantime).  After 3 phone calls, when they said they would send it, I finally threatened to find out who regulates them and report them - 4 days later I received it.

I'm now very busy planning travel and lodging for myself, children, and grandchildren in CA, CO, NM, AZ, TX, and Japan (one grandson is there in the Air Force) to go to Arlington in a few weeks.  The realization is starting to hit me that I have been in the shock period between death and burial service, at which point I will be able to begin to grieve his loss.

by Gaile Connolly G2G Astronaut (1.2m points)
Gaile you don't know me so I beg forgiveness in advance if I appear presumptsuous by commenting: Your husband is truly blessed to have had you there for him as he faced the ending period of his life. The strength I'm certain you displayed in fighting those never-ending bureaucratic battles in his name for his deserved recognition is a credit to your honor; actions performed by you in a million little ways I'm certain he witnessed daily while vulnerable and wounded in action 'if-you-will'. You may not have hauled your critically wounded husband off a shell riddled battle field but the impact of your ongoing actions to sustain his deserved quality of life and peace of mind were certainly no less important. He must have been very proud of your continuing display of courage and strength to keep the 'system' responsive to his needs while you simultaneously managed 'his' home. How proud he must have been to have had you to lean on. How proud he must still be...
Oh, Gaile, you have really described your ordeal well.  Reading your profile illustrates how competent and strong you have been, therefore just the sort of person who could handle this burden without collapsing.  

One point. Dying surrounded by loved ones doesn't always work well in societies with bureaucratic issues.  My cousin Gloria's mother died in a nursing home surrounded by her family and it was a weekend.  No doctor would come to declare her deceased. No mortuary would remove the body without the doctor's declaration. Frantic calls.  Rigor mortis. 17 hours with the deceased before a doctor finally came.
Gaile, my condolences for your loss. That is super difficult.
+22 votes

This is a photo of my great grandmother Laura McCullough. She was only 14 in this photo. My first cousin once removed wrote me a letter in 1973 telling me about her death at age 30. She died following childbirth, and her baby girl died a few months later from whooping cough. 

When I was a teenager, I asked my mother why my father was an only child, and she told me that my grandparents didn't want to have any more children. I know my grandmother was very ill when she had my father, and I now feel like my grandfather was afraid that my grandmother might die like his mother did when he was only five.

by Alexis Nelson G2G6 Pilot (927k points)
Yes, Alexis, your reasoning is sound.  It has a huge impact when children lose a parent at a young age.  It affects the decisions they make in their adult life. And thank you for sharing the photo.  I love seeing these images from the 1800s.
Pat, thank you for your insightful comment. I also love your photos and profiles.
+19 votes
I wrote about my baby cousin, Maureen. She died the day after her 1st birthday. I never knew her because she died before I was born, but she was never forgotten. I don't remember a time when I didn't know about her. She was a beautiful baby. Her picture is on my blog.
https://familytreesandbranches.blogspot.com/2023/02/52-ancestors-in-52-weeks-week-9-gone.html
by Kim Kolk G2G6 Mach 2 (27.8k points)
+20 votes

"No parent should have to bury their child." Regardless of their age, I guess. So here's a photo of our baby boy's grave at Lang'ata Cemetery in Nairobi:

Little Josua definitely went too soon. We never saw him learn to walk or talk; he never went to school or played with the neighbours kids; he never rebelled as a teenager or had a childhood sweetheart. He would be nineteen now, and he would be an uncle to his big sister's baby boy as of eight weeks ago. He's part of our family's story, no matter how long ago we buried him. Still missing little Josua!

#Remember the children!

by Oliver Stegen G2G6 Pilot (232k points)

Oliver, your photo is privacy protected, so if you'd like to add Space:Images4G2G to the "people and things in the image" on the image edit page, it should show here.

(I have a nephew in Kenya I have never met.  He has just turned two!)

Thanks, Melanie!

I hope it is visible now.

It is.

Thanks again, Melanie! You have touched my heart.
+20 votes

The person for me is my little sister, Elisabeth Jowett. She was born with congenital kidney failure, and at the age of three months was expected to live about another six months. Fortunately, medical research progressed more quickly than her illness, and she died forty-eight years later.

Much of her childhood was spent in and out of hospital, always accompanied by her favourite teddy bear - who was also placed in her coffin to accompany her on her final journey. When her condition deteriorated to the point where she required dialysis, she was fortunate enough to be enrolled on a trail of a new form of dialysis (continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis, or CAPD): at the same time my parents were tested to see whether they were a match to be able to donate a kidney - my father was and the transplant was a success. I said that I wanted to be tested, but her doctors advised against it, as it was not known whether the condition was genetic and I might be affected: as Elisabeth was still under 18, my parents said that they    would not give consent for an operation to receive a kidney from me.

About twenty-five years later the transplanted kidney started to fail and Elisabeth had to go back onto dialysis. Sadly, by the time she was at (or near) the top of the transplant list her condition had deteriorated and she was no longer well enough to have the operation, even if a matching kidney had been available.

(Edited to add link)

by Ruth Jowett G2G6 Mach 4 (49.8k points)
+16 votes

You always wish/hope for one more day/month/year with your loved ones.  They're always gone too soon when they pass. 

G Uncle Rufus Carswell sadly took his own life at age 30 leaving behind his expectant wife and young child.  

G Uncles Charles and Edward Hogan were twins born 11 Aug 1913.  Baby Edward died after just 10 days and Charles followed just two months later.

by Dorothy O'Hare G2G6 Mach 9 (92.6k points)
+17 votes
I can't exactly say that my mother (Loosley-44) died too soon, since she lived about forty years longer than anyone expected. She had a bad heart, and they thought she would die when she was ten. I've been told about her wedding: the family pleading with my grandfather, please go in and walk her down the aisle. He didn't want to do it, he was afraid it would kill her. And her doctors told her she really, really, shouldn't get pregnant. But one thing she wasn't good at: listening when people told her what not to do. So here I am. She made it to the age of 52 before her heart finally gave up. Too soon for me, but given her odds a pretty good run.

However, I have been blessed to live long enough to hold my grandbabies. And I am sad she didn't last just a few years longer, and have the chance to hold hers. She would have loved them so much. So, yeah, too soon.
by Alan Kreutzer G2G6 Mach 1 (14.8k points)
+12 votes
My niece Madeline, fell into the family's swimming pool at 16 months old, after 15 minutes she was pulled out by paramedics.

She didn't die then, she spent 18 months in a pediatric ICU, she had significant brain damage, could not talk,  could not swallow, could not walk or sit up, was blind and was tube fed for the following 19 years when she did die, cause of death, pneumonia, the last of a dozen or more pneumonia infections she had suffered over the past many years.

The lesson here, keep the ----pool gate locked! And don't fall asleep on the couch while you are in charge of children.
by M Ross G2G6 Pilot (956k points)
This is heartbreaking, M.  As you say, a real lesson.
=( So sorry, M.
+12 votes

I chose to go into the Category "Maternal Mortality" this time, and found there the profile of Caroline Margaret (McDonald) Francis. At first I wanted to connect her via her husband and/or some of her stepchildren. No luck there. Then I looked for her ancestry and found that her mother has the not so usual surname of Whiteway. And bingo. I found her, she was here already married and had a son, which was (doublechecking on FamilySearch) one of the younger brothers of Caroline. So Caroline only had to find her parents to get connected.

by Jelena Eckstädt G2G Astronaut (1.7m points)
+12 votes

I'd love to see my Greek godmother once again. She is/was my mother's best friend at boarding school in England. She took me to Madam Tussaud's, to my first concert in London, gave me a complete works of Shakespeare and other great books - always kept close to me. Last spoke to her over a year ago. My mother has been talking about her so often recently, and was so sad that she had lost touch.
Then a few days ago, on her birthday, I decided to search for her in the internet one more time. I found her name and that of her family in (wait for it) a Greek page on Genealogy.com. I was then able to Google her daughter, whom I found in a recent newsletter of the same boarding school. Wrote to the Old Girls' Association, and hey presto - a day later and we were in touch again. My godmother and her husband were still alive and had moved house. 
My mother is over the moon. She thought she'd never hear from her again.
It's really special when you know that time, however little, is the most precious thing we have before we take our leave of those we love. heart

by Frances Piercy-Reins G2G6 Pilot (111k points)
+12 votes
My mom. She died when I was 11, 5 days before I turned 12. I'm 26 now, but I remember and think about her through the eyes of an 11 year old. It's hard to explain, it's like ever since she died, my memory of her is frozen in time. Just a few weeks ago, it dawned on my that my mom would have her 50th birthday this year, and it was really hard to wrap my head around. I think of her, and I see a young woman, not a 50 year old.

I really wish she was around. I wish I could have had an adult conversation with her.
by Trevor Grismore G2G6 Mach 2 (27.9k points)
That's rough, man. =(
My father would turn 80 this year. I can't imagine him that old. For me he is the guy around 40 that I remember.
+12 votes
My step dad Cornett-1493, he just had his 50th birthday in October, and died on Thanksgiving day. It's been hard to cope with because it was so sudden and he was a truck driver so was only home on weekends most of the time anyways. But I think what bothers me more than anything was he was fine all day long, and then that evening my mom had called an ambulance for him. I was told he was going to have emergency stints put in and that someone would call to let me know what was going on. I feel like I barely hung up before I received the phone call that he didn't make it. My son is no stranger to death, sadly. But the loss of his Pappaw broke his little heart, they were best friends. I wish he was still here, I miss my daddy
by Daryl Blankenship G2G6 (8.5k points)
I'm sorry for you loss.
Thank you. This question gave me the urge to go by the Cemetery where he and several other members of my family were laid to rest, kind of overdue for a visit there anyways. It's peculiar timing (at least to me) since they just set his headstone in the past couple of days.
+10 votes
I would like to have a lot more time with my brother who just died yesterday (Feb 27th) of a massive heart attack while we were at work.
by Tommy Buch G2G Astronaut (2.3m points)
edited by Tommy Buch
Tommy, I am so sorry for your loss. Such a difficult loss.  My thoughts and prayers are with you and your family.

My heart goes out to you, Tommyheart

=( Condolences to you and yours, Tommy.
I'm so very sorry for your loss, Tommy
+12 votes

This week, USBH is featuring two ladies who were gone far too soon.

https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/1545211/52-weeks-of-us-black-heritage-notables-week-9-gone-too-soon

Minnie Riperton best known for her amazing 1975 single "Lovin' You." She died at age 31 from breast cancer. 

Carol "Denise" McNair  was one of four girls killed during the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama. She was only eleven years old. 

by Emma MacBeath G2G Astronaut (1.3m points)
+8 votes
My maternal 1st cousin, Michael Wrenn was a very bright young man... however he passed away at the age of 35 in 1994 in San Francisco, CA.  He died from complications of AIDS.

I remember when I was 16 years old and I saw him during Christmas of 1993. My face turned white when I saw this tall and gauntly man. I never fully understood the epidemic until two decades later.

I would have love to get know him and collaborate with him on a few projects. Now, I hope to be a nurse (waiting to hear back if I will be in nursing school) especially to patients with AIDS.
by Eileen Robinson G2G6 Pilot (241k points)
edited by Eileen Robinson
=( So sorry, Elieen.

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