Unusual causes of death

[Viktoria]

My grandma lost a 16 year old to T.B in January 1910.Shortly after she had her last baby, a girl who died at under 3 months. At the same time her first grandchildren ,twin boys of just over a year, died .For three weeks on the run there were funerals of babies.Imagine losing a daughter whilst you were pregnant and then losing your new baby, which would have been some solace to you,then your eldest daughter loses her two babies and you want to comfort your daughter in her loss but your own is so great. I don`t know how they coped.To cap it all another daughter got married( which had been planned for some time) and moved away to live in another area.Well grandma coped by adopting four more children of a neighbour who died leaving them orphans. Their father was not on the scene, The youngest of them was the same age to within days as the baby she lost just after her 16yr old died.I can imagine her pain seeing each day a little girl who would have been doing what her baby would have been doing and what a solace this other little girl must have been to grandma, filling in some way the aching void.They wre made of stern stuff our ancestors. Viktoria

[kizmiaz]

They were made of stern stuff our ancestors. Viktoria

Too true, Viktoria

My great-grandmother lost one of her daughters at the age of 13 weeks to pneumonia, and then just two years later she lost her husband to cancer. Then within the space of 18 months she lost three more daughters to various ailments including meningitis and gastric enteritis, two of them within a fortnight of each other. All the time she was mourning, she had to raise my grandmother who was a baby at the time. I can't even begin to imagine how she coped!

Glen

[Springbok]

My daughter in NZ has a Maori friend who's Ggrandfather was a guide at one of the Thermal Valleys  near Rotorua in the late 1800s. 

It was known that on one lake there was  the fairly regular eruption and G would take a boat out with adventurous tourists .(according to Ggrandson)

from the link below one can read what really happened

The mineral Terrace is named after him.

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~sooty/waimangu1903.html

Reading this I can see how families don't get their facts correct. forgive all the modifications... should have done my homework first!

Spring

[maxxangel]

My husband had two great uncles who died as children, one from Weil's disease and one from drowning. My husband grew up learning to swin in the local canal, so he joked when he found out that the drownee probably drowned in the canal and the other probably caught Weil's there.

I have recently found out that the family did live near a canal, so he may well be right!

[dave the tyke]

In 1839 Charlotte Lightowler died.

The Leeds Mercury reported on the coroners verdict -

On Tuesday at the Punch Bowl, Northowram, on the body of Charlotte, the wife of James Lightowler, shoemaker, who suddenly expired the previous day, in consequence of a rupture of a blood vessel on the brain; the deceased was 21 years of age and had only been married a month. Verdict -"Died by the Visitation of God."

The following year James married Charlotte's sister and they went on to raise a family of 7 during their 30 year marriage.

[Nick29]

I don't have the death certificate, but my great-aunt's first husband allegedly died from pneumonia, after riding through the fountains of Paris on horseback in the middle of February ! 

[wendy47]

 My gg Uncle died when his horse bolted going under a railway bridge when a train went over and he was flung from his cart.

My husbands ancestor died after falling off some slimy steps at Greenwich whilst climbing from a boat up to the quay. He was quite merry at the time

My son in laws family had many fishermen dying at sea and some of his distant relations were involved in the "Beauchamp" Lifeboat disaster of 1901 at Caister.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1901_Caister_Lifeboat_Disaster

Wendy

[Viktoria]

My aunt(whom I never knew) died in 1931. She had Tuberculosis and was at the stage of the illness when the patient coughs up blood, on her death cert it says "haemoptisis"- I thought it was an error -pthysis being the proper name for T.B.and its other name consumption. However on looking up in the dictionary it means blood coming from the mouth,( more properly out of the mouth but originating in the stomach(ulcer) or lungs(T.B.) ) now whilst she would have that I feel the REAL cause of death was T.B.
The haemorrhaging must have been so severe to give it as a CAUSE of death rather than a symptom.
The mind boggles at the horror of it all. She contracted it most probably from an old chap in the office where she worked in whom it would progress slowly but in a young person it rampages through very quickly.
Such sadness in ancestor hunting isn`t there?. Viktoria.

[BumbleB]

I have an ancient relative, in both senses of the word - she was 89  who was "found hanged by a handkerchief to her bed rail.  Not sufficient evidence whether accidentally hanged or had hanged herself purposely."  As yet I can't find anything else - the Coroner's inquest for this period is not available - and I haven't been to Yorkshire since to see if there was a newspaper report.

BumbleB