What was the saddest death in your Tree ?

[Janed]

My great grandmother had 16 children of whom only 5 lived long enough to marry The rest died of TB. Of the 5 who married one died in childbirth, one lost her husband in 1918 and another had no children. The poor woman had 16 children but only 5 grandchildren.

While she was losing children in their teens in the 1890s she also lost her husband(age 42) to peritonitus(sp?) and gave birth to her last child 6 months later. This last child also died of TB age 13.

This remarkable woman lived until she was 81.

[Pollynation]

My gt grandfather must be the saddest in my tree.

His wife died of cancer, but then he met someone else and remarried only for her to run away taking everthing in the house with her. Then depression followed and he walked onto a train track in front of a train. He died of multiple injuries.

Best wishes
Pauline

[nikkithomasnikki]

My grandparents told me stories of various sad deaths in our family that I have since been able to confirm.  My maternal gg grandparents lost 2 children in a year - in 1890 aged 7 one from rheumatic fever and the second and boy aged 13 after being thrown from a cart and hitting his head on a milestone died from meningitis - was interested to see he died at home 4 days after the accident (have yet to read a coroners report but seems strange these days to think of somoeone having that sort of accident not being in hospital) another ancestor which I cant remember unfortunately - my grandfather told me used to wear long flowing skirts and had a little dog who used to hide in the skirts - she tripped over the dog going down stairs carrying a gaslamp and died of her burns (yet to find this mystery woman)

The saddest deaths have to be my grandmother going out one day in 1941 and seeing a list of casualties from a recent blitz reading it and seeing 8 members of her family - two seperate incidents and three generations wiped out in one night - despite the awful events in London recently I still feel lucky to be living now - not sure how my generation would have coped in the war compared to my grandparents - nikki

[wotty]

I had been told that my grandfather was one of six sons. He used to talk about all of his brothers even though he outlived most of them by many, many years.

When I saw the 1901 census, I was surprised to find that he was actually one of 7 sons. I had never heard him mention Edward. This naturally immediately aroused my suspicions and I went all out to find out everything I could about Edward.

Edward was 6 years old in 1901 living with all his brothers and his parents. He died at the age of 20 in the workhouse infirmary. His cause of death was given as "imbecile and epileptic". I felt really sad, thinking about this boy who was probably seen as an embarrassment to his family, being sent away from them, perhaps at quite a young age, and dying in the workhouse infirmary.

Wotty.

[Mary G.]

I think prior generations survived terrible losses because they had no other choice - it was one foot in front of the other. Its not a matter of being more accepting of death or less affected by it, although they certainly would have had their heads around the notion that death at any age was a real possibility. Today, in the west, we're shocked and affronted when anyone under the age of 75 dies.

I look at my family tree, and the number of children's deaths is so startling to modern sensibilities - and multiple deaths within the same family within short time frames common, due to outbreaks of illness - I have several examples where two or three children died within a few weeks. I also have many ancestors who had multiple marriages due to the deaths of their spouses. New world colonists in particular remarried fairly quickly because they NEEDED a new spouse for economic and domestic survival - and doubtless they couldn't afford to be too picky among the limited candidates available within geographic range. I do think they had more practical expectations about what marriage involved, and likely did not expect their spouse to be their soul mate, best friend and favourite leisure companion.

I have no doubt that parents loved their children every bit as much 200 years ago as we do today, and just as destroyed by their loss - but they had less time to indulge in emotional collapse. After all, if you have a half dozen other children and a home and farm to keep going (with no labour saving devices and little in the way of store bought clothing or food etc.)....you'd have to get up and get on with it, or everyone's survival would be at stake.

No wonder so many clung to their religious faith for comfort and hope of a better world beyond this one.

Mary

[Sarah in Midlands]

How's this for a double whammy...

My GG Grandfather was killed by a train - he ran across the track to avoid one train but was hit by one going the other way.

A few years later his widow accidentally set her apron on fire.  She ran into the street, causing the flames to engulf her and died in hospital shortly after!  We have a copy of a newspaper from the time with details of the incident!

SIM

[Creatrix]

There are a number of deaths that I have found sad in my family tree. There have been falling downs in elevator shafts and falling head first into the mud while well digging but I think the most tragic is the story of my grandfather's brother. Back in the teens of the 20th C. his family was headed off in their car, mother holding her little baby Freddy in her arms. While nearing train tracks the car was jolted and baby Freddy flew from mother's arms on to the train tracks. A train was actually coming! Before they could reach the baby, he was crushed by the train.   *sigh*  Tragic! I guess my great grandmother was inconsolible because my grandfather was born a little while later, christened by the same name and apparently spoiled rotten as a baby (which was something since they were apparently very poor).

Creatrix N


Oooh.. I just looked at the above entry and didn't even realize there was another train tragedy until now! 

[Sarah in Midlands]

Oh my - thats awful! 

Perhaps indicative of why child safety seats are so important!

There do seem to be a lot of train accidents though...  Think I'll steer clear of the tracks for a while...

SIM

[Ninatoo]

My saddest was from my g-grandparents in 1908.  Baby Mary died from "Prematurity (6 months)"  She lived for two days.  She was their first.

This same couple lost a baby boy born and died in 1910, too.  Cause of death unknown, as I haven't found a death certificate yet.