Recently, I found online the 1888
obituary of a woman and her daughter who died in a house fire. Out of curiosity, I looked up a newspaper article on the fire. It turns out that the obituary was originally part of this same article. Why hadn’t the poster provided the entire article? I found that the article included some speculation as to why the mother did not heed the warnings and get her and her daughter out in time. It also included a graphic description of the condition of the bodies when recovered. I can easily understand why someone, especially a family member, would not want to post that information. I even hesitated before including it in this article. Was that ethical or would I just be sensationalizing these tragic deaths? There is no easy answer. The media grapples with this issue all the time, and in my humble opinion, they far too often choose to sensationalize over respecting people’s feelings and privacy. Is that truly wrong, or just not to our taste?
So I looked back to genealogy standards for guidance.
Deliberately modifying genealogical information to suit ourselves is as old as the hills. Babies’ birthdates are “adjusted” so they happen after the proper nine-month period following the wedding. Grandpa’s ornery second wife is conveniently “forgotten.” A small change allows someone to claim a famous ancestor for their own.
There are also well-intentioned, but misguided, changes made to “correct errors.” The spelling of a name is “corrected.” Abbreviations are expanded into words. Punctuation is “fixed.”
The difficulty here is that, to change anything, you must make an assumption. And we all learned in elementary school what that means, right? If you make a change, you are assuming that someone, somewhere, made a mistake. And you may change it with the best of intentions. But you may be wrong!
Since genealogists are almost always looking into the past, viewing that past through the imperfect lens of our own modern morals and beliefs can lead us far astray. See my post in this blog called “Watch Your Language” for a prime example of this. My brother, Don, recently tried to help a family locate information on their beloved grandmother. Don asked for her husband’s name. The reply: “Oh we don’t talk about him. He was a pedophile.” Don: “How do you know that?” Answer: “Because he married Grandma when she was only 15 years old.” Of course, in the 19th century, when this couple was married, fifteen was a very common age for girls to marry. Viewing the past through this family’s modern morals was giving Grandpa an undeserved black eye.
But I digress.
In genealogy, when copying an original document, called transcribing, the rule is to always copy it EXACTLY. Keep it as close to the original as humanly possible and keep an untouched copy of that forever. Don’t correct spelling, punctuation, abbreviations, capitalization or information. Don’t change, or fix, as much as a comma! Changing anything could completely alter the original meaning of the document, sending you, or someone else, on a wild goose chase. Even a “misspelled” name can give you a better idea of how the family pronounced it, possibly helping to find other records. If you can’t read something or want to add a comment for clarity, always put that information in square brackets like these: [ ] to show that it is your addition, not part of the original document.
Such exact transcriptions and details can also provide valuable “forensic” information. Modern scientists can sometimes solve crimes or mysteries that go back hundreds, or even thousands of years, just because someone recorded the exact details of the situation. In my family, we have the story of Willie Beck. He was a healthy, strapping young man when he went to Europe as a U.S. Army Private in World War I. But during the war, he became ill. His buddies helped him out by covering for him and carrying his pack when he couldn’t. He didn't want his superiors to know he was sick because he was afraid they would keep him in an Army hospital overseas and he wanted to go home. Willie finally did come home, but he did not get better. Weakness became paralysis, starting with his hands. Over the next 18 years, the paralysis spread to the rest of his body. His family could change his body position, but he could not move himself. This photo was taken in 1921, just a few years after the war. It is already clear that his right hand is affected.
The doctors at the University of Iowa Hospitals said he was shell-shocked. His Army buddies said that he had been vaccinated too close to his spinal cord by the Army doctors. To this day, the exact nature of his illness is unknown. Could it have been encephalitis lethargica? Portrayed in the 1990 movie “Awakenings,” this disease reached epidemic proportions in the aftermath of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918. Was his illness genetic? Should I worry about my children? Or was Willie sick with something else entirely? We may never know the exact disease he had. But I intend to record as much as I can find out about his symptoms, so that future medical advances may eventually solve the mystery. The same may be true of the mother in this story.
I am a firm believer in full disclosure and in telling the whole story. Our ancestors were only human, after all, subject to all the same failings and moral conflicts as we are. They, like us, did the best they could at the time. And their choices are no reflection on us. We must make our own choices. White-washing the story of our ancestors’ lives is first, not believable, and second, a dishonor to their genuine struggles and successes. I often take heart from what they accomplished when struggling with my own life. I refuse to take that same opportunity away from others.
So, on that note, here is my transcription of the entire article on the deadly fire. It could have happened to any one of us. God bless them all!
[Warning! Some graphic descriptions!]
Fire and Death
A Terrible Casualty Occurs in the Country on Saturday Evening
One of the saddest and most heart rending casualties that has occurred in Jackson County in years happened Saturday night four and a half miles north of this city. At 8:30 an alarm of fire was heard from the farm-house of Edwin Bradway, situated some little distance from the main road, by Hiram Stevenson and H. Miller who were passing by in a wagon. They immediately went to the house and there met a little girl twelve years of age who was crying and shouting for help. To their horror she informed them that her mother and little four-year-old sister were in the burning building. Mr. Stevenson attempted to rescue the unfortunate beings by making a bold dash into the house, but the stifling smoke and flame drove him back, after having scorched his face and nearly burned his beard off. He said he could see nothing of the inmates, nor hear any signal of distress. The girl pointed out the location of the room occupied by her mother, which was upon the first floor. Additional help had now arrived and efforts were put forth to extinguish the flames in that part of the house. Several hundred buckets of water were thrown upon the flames, but with little effect. In less than an hour the building was entirely consumed with the mother and the child, and all the contents.
Mr. Bradway, the husband and father, an industrious, worthy young farmer, was in town at the time trading at one of the hardware stores and did not reach home until after 9 o'clock. When he came upon the scene of his ruined home he seemed dazed and bewildered. When informed that his wife and child had perished in the flames, a shriek of despair escaped his lips that brought tears to the eyes of all who heard it. Water was continually thrown upon the bodies until 4 o'clock in the morning, when the heat had subsided sufficiently to permit the removal of the remains. They were scarcely recognizable. The flesh upon the little child was burned to a crisp and the larger bones were about all that remained. The hands, face, feet, and a portion of the skull of the mother were burned up and the flesh on the body black and roasted.
The little girl who escaped says they went to bed about 8 o'clock, and about half an hour after she smelt smoke. She got up partially suffocated from the smoke and discovered fire in a small clothes press.* Eulalia [the girl] tried to arouse her mother who was occupying the same bed with her clothes on temporarily with the youngest child. She told her the house was on fire, and wanted to take her little sister. Her mother objected and refused to get up saying, in seemingly a stupefied condition, "Get back to bed, everything is all right." The flames were making rapid headway and Eulalia again tried to warn her mother of the danger. She then beat a hasty retreat from the burning building, but not without severely burning her feet. She looked and waited in an agony of suspense, hoping her mother would escape before it was too late, but she never came.
Mrs. Bradway's apparent indifference to her own safety has created some suspicions in the minds of the people that perhaps she did not desire to escape. Her health had been quite poor for some time, and at times her mind seemed affected. It is thought she might have been suffering this way at the time. Others are of the opinion that she became asphyxiated by the smoke and was unconscious of the impending danger.
The origin of the fire in clothes press is a mystery and cannot be satisfactorily accounted for by either the girl or the father. It is a very sad case and elicits the sympathy of the entire community in behalf of the grief-stricken father and daughter.
Mr. Bradway says his pecuniary loss will be close to $2000. There was a small insurance on the house. The entire contents of the house were consumed, embracing all their clothing, except what was worn by Mr. Bradway and children, including furniture, a new $42 cook stove, tables, provisions, about 200 gallons of maple syrup and sorghum, besides grain, farm machinery, etc., also promissory notes, deeds and other valuable papers.
* A clothes press is a trunk or cupboard where clothes were kept.
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The funeral services occurred at 2:30 p.m. on Monday, at the Esgate school house, Rev. Stevens, the evangelist, officiating. The remains of the mother and child were both placed in one coffin, and interred in Mt. Hope cemetery, in this city. They were followed to their last resting place by a very large number of sympathizing friends and relatives. The deceased, Mary Eulalia Bradway, was the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. H.W. McCarron. She was born December 15, 1851 at Berea, Ohio, and came to Maquoketa with her parents in December, 1855. She received her education at the academy in Maquoketa, and taught several terms of school. Was married to Edwin Bradway July 20, 1870, to whom five children were born. The oldest son and two daughters are now living, and beside them she leaves a husband, father, mother, one sister, one brother and many other relatives and friends who deeply mourn her very sudden and unnatural death. Little Anna, who met her untimely death in her mother's arms, had she lived would have been five years old in September. She was a bright, affectionate child, with a pleasant, unselfish disposition, and was dearly beloved by all who knew her. - Jackson Sentinel, 28 June 1888, Pg. 1.
© 2012 LuAnn Goeke
