My Dream of Health Care for All

April 6, 2010

My Dream of Health Care for All:

The reason my 83rd Birthday was so great. The Health Care Reform was signed into being, on March 25, 2010. Something I have wished for so many times as various President’s tried to get it into the works, but so many would not allow the bill to go forth. My reason is as follows:

We saw practically all my Mother’s family decimated by tuberculosis in the 1930’s. We had a great Doctor and friend and he came whenever he was sent for, but there was no medicine to help. Eating all the right foods was no problem; they had a nice farm, garden, fruit trees of all kinds, berries by the gallons, grapes, pecans, chestnuts, sugar cane for syrup. They had cows, hogs, chickens and goats. There was always milk, butter, eggs and good food to eat, but about the only suggestion was go west to a higher dryer climate you might be able to find a Sanitarium. We found one in Bisbee, Arizona and Aunt Louise died there. One in San Angelo, Texas, the others we found in Alabama didn’t help either. Health Care came many moons to late to help all the people I loved so dear. Social Security and Medicare came to late for all except my Mother, as none of the others reached that golden age of 65.

Let’s hope this will never happen to another family in our day and age. But even now in the age of many medical miracles, and money for everything, even wars to kill more people, there are people who do not want other people to have Healthcare, if it might cost them. There is nothing more valuable on this earth than good health otherwise there is no joy in living if you are constantly suffering and know that death is just around the next curve.

When I was 7, a man working for my Grandfather became ill, he lived on the farm and helped my Grandmother do the garden, milk, fed the stock, helped her in the kitchen. My family, helped take care of him, he died in 1935. Dr. Hall said it was tuberculosis. In 1935 Uncle Deal died age 27, from pneumonia. Aunt Flora Mae died in 1936 age 23, from tuberculosis. Aunt Nellie died in 1938 age 16, she had tuberculosis, but a ruptured appendix caused her death. Aunt Lee died in 1938 age 26, from tuberculosis. My 6 foot 4 tall wonderful Grandfather, who protected me when I got in trouble with my Father died in 1939 age 57, from tuberculosis. Uncle Lawrence who was a handsome young man died in 1939 age 18. Aunt Louise died in 1939 age 25 from tuberculosis and left 2 small sons (who were raised by her in-laws to be grown and raised families of their own). Uncle Joe Fred died in 1940 age 29, from tuberculosis and left 2 young sons (my Grandmother raised them until they were grown and they raised families of their own). My Aunt Bernice died 1940 from tuberculosis at age 16 years and 16 days.

This left my little 5 foot 3 Grandmother at age 53, with my uncles 33 year old, Uncle Elton and 14 year old James Hall (who always insisted I call him Uncle, even though he was only a little over 6 months older than I, and her two small grandsons age 9 and 6.

This left my Grandmother with 4 living children, my Mother Era, age 32 with 6 children of her own, I was 13. My Aunt Lois, age 23 with 1 child. My little Grandmother had lost her own Mother when she was 7 years old. So a hard life was nothing new to her. Most all who had died had started being sick in 1934. But she actually lost 6 of her own children, her husband and 1 son-in-law and 1 daughter in-law in a 5, year period. Can anyone imagine having to feed, take care of so many sick people at one time? Laundry, to be done the old-fashioned way, washtub and rub-board, then hung on the line to dry. See that cows are milked and fed, milk churned for butter, other animals taken care of, gardens to be tended and other crops to be taken care of. Of course all family members that weren’t sick helped. A few old and dear friends helped also.

In those days people were so afraid of tuberculosis, as they knew there was no cure. So many people who always came for great food and friendship stayed away and you couldn’t blame them. The other man, Vanderbilt Brown who worked for my Grandfather and had a barbershop, on the farm, stayed and helped my Grandmother and the family through all of this tragedy and would not leave until my Grandmother insisted.

A friend of my Grandfather owned a Barber Shop in Tuscaloosa, Alabama and he gave him a job. I saw him in 1953 when I was 26 years old. I took my Mother to Alabama and we stopped at the Barber Shop to see him. This was in the days when white women did not go into an establishment to see a black man, must less go up and hug him. But I did. It was so good to see this wonderful man, whose first duty was to see that I didn’t get hurt running around the farm when I was little. I was the first grandchild. He doctored my many cuts with alcohol and peroxide. When he shaved my Grandfather, I loved the smell of what he put on his face afterward. Always had to have some put on me. He was a beautiful soul. I will always remember all the love, help and care he gave my family when things were, so dark and sad. He, gave me, my first haircut, a boyish bob with bangs, I was 4.

I often wonder how on God’s green earth my little Grandmother lived through so much heartache. But she stood as tall as the mighty pine trees in Alabama and as hard to kill as a kudzu vine. She saw her youngest son go into the Navy in 1944 and he stayed there and retired after 28 years and raised his family. Her oldest grandson, at age 17 went into the Navy before she died. After 7 years of taking care of her family with tuberculosis all those years, she never contacted the dreadful disease. She died 8 years later in 1948 with a heart attack at age 60, 3 months, 6 days, when her youngest grandson was 14.
My Mother put him in a private school in Alabama. My Uncle Elton died from tuberculosis in 1949 at age 42, which was inevitable, as he would not leave the old home. My Mother and Father had moved to Texas with all of us, and Aunt Lois and Uncle James moved to Texas also. When he got sick they came back and put him in a hospital in Birmingham, but he did not want to stay, so he came back home, but would not go to bed. He walked a lot and should not be walking, but I think he was looking to find the end of his road, and he did one June day.

On the day of his funeral, when everyone was at the cemetery, some nice ‘Christian’ person set fire to the old home and when they returned, it had burned to the ground. All papers, pictures, the old organ that I loved to make noise on, the old trunks that quilts and other things were stored in. The big framed, pictures of both my Great-Grandfathers with their beards. Even the luggage they had brought with them to the funeral. Nothing was saved.

I found out who did it, but he had already died, when I did. This man used to hunt and fish with my Grandfather and my Father, he an all his family were guests in our homes, they always came to the big holiday cookouts that my Grandfather had and enjoyed the wonderful homebrew he made and bottled for these special occasions. We had gone to school with his children and my Grandfather had sold him his store and service station across from the post office and our school when he got sick. I would have liked to have, whipped his sorry hide with a buggy whip. No one, had to go into the house, nor live in it, no one lived near by. No one else died of tuberculosis that lived in that house until 9 years later when Elton died in 1949. None of the friends that came to visit or any other family members contacted tuberculosis.

It was a tragedy that I will never forget. I am the only one left that was old enough to remember. I remember my elderly relatives talking about the influenza epidemic in the early 1900’s, with whole families dying. I remember in our cemeteries, the markers for small children, all brothers and sisters, 3 and 4 in a row all having died within a few days of each other. No real medical help available. We now have help for people that are sick, but I still remember the days when we didn’t. None of the wonderful, medicines that we have now, were available. But over time greed made many of these unavailable to many of our citizens of this country. What happened to our love of humanity?
The jingle of Midas! This is an illness that can’t be cured.

I thank our beautiful Black President Barack Obama for wanting the same thing that I have wanted for so many years and helped get it through and he signed it, even through it wasn’t all that he wanted, but it is a start. Thank God for such a man to come in my lifetime.