Victim of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1878.
(Anne Walter Fearn, from her autobiography, "My Days of Strength: An American Woman Doctor's Forty Years in China")
A small girl with cropped, curly hair was perched precariously on the edge of the veranda. Her hands were folded primly in the lap of her starched white dress and she was being very quiet because she was supposed to be safe inside the house with her three sisters and her little brother. But the excitement in the air had been too strong to resist; like a magnet it had drawn her out of doors. Half hidden by a pillar she listened to the strange sounds; she heard the rush of many feet, the rising murmur of the confused crowd that filled the yard. She watched the townspeople mill around the man on the steps, imploring him to stay with them. She looked up into the man's face and thought of lions, so wonderful were his eyes, so full of power and strength.
I was that eleven-year-old child, and the man was my father, Colonel Harvey Washington Walter. That was my last sight of him, standing there with his three grown sons behind him, and telling his neighbors as long as life lasted he and his sons would remain there with them.
I didn't know then why the women cried, why the men walked about with faces drawn and tense. Later I was to learn. That was the summer of 1878, the never-to-be-forgotten year, when the terror of the South – yellow fever – raged all around us.
New Orleans, a constant victim of its ravages, was in the grip of an epidemic and slowly the disease had made its way northward. Holly Springs, with the highest altitude in Mississippi and heretofore immune, grew apprehensive as first Grenada, then Water Valley, and finally Oxford, the university town thirty miles to the south, were stricken. My father, the ruling spirit of Holly Springs, had been away somewhere at court. He returned to find that in his absence his fellow citizens had established a shotgun quarantine. Grieved by this seeming heartlessness, and strong in his faith in the immunity of our hills, he had induced them to raise the quarantine and welcome refugees from the neighboring towns. Soon sporadic cases appeared in our midst, and then the courthouse bell tolled ominously; the epidemic was upon us.
The morning after the meeting on our front lawn my mother, with the younger children, took "the last train that stopped." It was all very thrilling to a little girl who liked things to happen, whose mind was stirred by adventure then and always, and who didn't realize the seriousness of that trip or the tragedy left behind. My father and older brothers stayed on, as my father had promised, tending the sick and burying the dead. Our house was turned into a hospital. Every household was in mourning and in many cases whole families were blotted out. But it was not until the frost had fallen, the greatest danger past, and the end of the epidemic in sight that my father and brothers fell ill with the fever. Then, within one week, all four were dead.
My mother was left desolate. Of our homecoming I cannot speak.
We were in Huntsville when the first mail reached us in all those weeks of exile. Even before the news came my mother had an experience that made an indelible impression on me. I usually slept in the same room with Mother and I was awakened suddenly one night by her cry. My married sister Minnie (Mrs. H.C. Myers), who had joined us there, was in the next room. She came at once and I was shifted to another room. It was not until many years later that I dared ask my mother about that night. She hesitated before replying and then said,
"It distresses me to speak of it, but since you asked, I will tell you that I was awakened by a light that shone about your father, who stretched out his arms to me and said, "Dona, my wife, it has come upon me like a thief in the night."
Among the letters we received in that first batch of mail was one from my father to my mother. It began: "Dona, my wife, it has come upon me like a thief in the night."
During that long, sad autumn I have fleeting memories of my mother wandering drearily from room to room in that big house which had been so easily filled by the presence of the large-hearted man who was gone. It was years before we heard her laugh again.
********************************************************
In the stillness of the preceding night a few sparks of electricity flashed over the wires, and all the civilized world read on the morning of the 20th of September last, the brief, hut to us who knew and loved him, inexpressibly sad message, "Colonel Walter is amongst the dead of the last twenty-four hours." The noble, brave-hearted man who had, on the breaking out of the great epidemic of 1878, stretched out his hands and bid all the affrighted refugees from fever-stricken points to come to Holly Springs as a place of refuge, lay dead with his lace to the foe. There were some of us whose hearts stood still as we read, and whose eyes filled with tears of anguish, and to whom it was a bitter d iv as to those in a lonely house from which loved ones had departed. We knew that be was ill, but bad refused to believe that any harm could come to Aim; others might die, but surely our dear old friend would pass through the fire, us he had passed over a score of battlefield* unscathed. "A thousand shall fall beside thee, and ten thousand at thy right hand, but it shall not come nigh thee," were the words with which we comforted ourselves, when we learned that the dreaded fever had made its appearance at Holly Springs ; but alas, we were doomed to experience a bitter disappointment. God's ways are not our ways, and He took whom it seemed to Him best should be taken. Those of us who remain to set up the curtains of our Tabernacle, performing the duty which Freemasonry dictates, submitting, with resigna'.ion, to the Supreme Grand High Priest's will, endeavor to place on record our estimate of his worth and to testify our affection for him. Companion Walter was born in Fairfield county, Ohio, on the 21st day of May, 1819, but a few years later his parents settled at Kalamazoo, Michigan, where his early years were spent. An unfortunate investment consumed his lather's entire fortune, and at the age of fourteen our Companion began the battle of life, which he thenceforth fought without parental assistance. Having completed his college course, he came to Mississippi, earning his living by teaching school, while preparing for his admission to the bar. Soon after receiving his license to practice law, in the year 1840, he located at Holly Springs, and from that time his name is inseparably interwoven with the history of his State and county.
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=HUIuAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&hl=en&pg=GBS.PR17
This is the source.
(Anne Walter Fearn, from her autobiography, "My Days of Strength: An American Woman Doctor's Forty Years in China")
A small girl with cropped, curly hair was perched precariously on the edge of the veranda. Her hands were folded primly in the lap of her starched white dress and she was being very quiet because she was supposed to be safe inside the house with her three sisters and her little brother. But the excitement in the air had been too strong to resist; like a magnet it had drawn her out of doors. Half hidden by a pillar she listened to the strange sounds; she heard the rush of many feet, the rising murmur of the confused crowd that filled the yard. She watched the townspeople mill around the man on the steps, imploring him to stay with them. She looked up into the man's face and thought of lions, so wonderful were his eyes, so full of power and strength.
I was that eleven-year-old child, and the man was my father, Colonel Harvey Washington Walter. That was my last sight of him, standing there with his three grown sons behind him, and telling his neighbors as long as life lasted he and his sons would remain there with them.
I didn't know then why the women cried, why the men walked about with faces drawn and tense. Later I was to learn. That was the summer of 1878, the never-to-be-forgotten year, when the terror of the South – yellow fever – raged all around us.
New Orleans, a constant victim of its ravages, was in the grip of an epidemic and slowly the disease had made its way northward. Holly Springs, with the highest altitude in Mississippi and heretofore immune, grew apprehensive as first Grenada, then Water Valley, and finally Oxford, the university town thirty miles to the south, were stricken. My father, the ruling spirit of Holly Springs, had been away somewhere at court. He returned to find that in his absence his fellow citizens had established a shotgun quarantine. Grieved by this seeming heartlessness, and strong in his faith in the immunity of our hills, he had induced them to raise the quarantine and welcome refugees from the neighboring towns. Soon sporadic cases appeared in our midst, and then the courthouse bell tolled ominously; the epidemic was upon us.
The morning after the meeting on our front lawn my mother, with the younger children, took "the last train that stopped." It was all very thrilling to a little girl who liked things to happen, whose mind was stirred by adventure then and always, and who didn't realize the seriousness of that trip or the tragedy left behind. My father and older brothers stayed on, as my father had promised, tending the sick and burying the dead. Our house was turned into a hospital. Every household was in mourning and in many cases whole families were blotted out. But it was not until the frost had fallen, the greatest danger past, and the end of the epidemic in sight that my father and brothers fell ill with the fever. Then, within one week, all four were dead.
My mother was left desolate. Of our homecoming I cannot speak.
We were in Huntsville when the first mail reached us in all those weeks of exile. Even before the news came my mother had an experience that made an indelible impression on me. I usually slept in the same room with Mother and I was awakened suddenly one night by her cry. My married sister Minnie (Mrs. H.C. Myers), who had joined us there, was in the next room. She came at once and I was shifted to another room. It was not until many years later that I dared ask my mother about that night. She hesitated before replying and then said,
"It distresses me to speak of it, but since you asked, I will tell you that I was awakened by a light that shone about your father, who stretched out his arms to me and said, "Dona, my wife, it has come upon me like a thief in the night."
Among the letters we received in that first batch of mail was one from my father to my mother. It began: "Dona, my wife, it has come upon me like a thief in the night."
During that long, sad autumn I have fleeting memories of my mother wandering drearily from room to room in that big house which had been so easily filled by the presence of the large-hearted man who was gone. It was years before we heard her laugh again.
********************************************************
In the stillness of the preceding night a few sparks of electricity flashed over the wires, and all the civilized world read on the morning of the 20th of September last, the brief, hut to us who knew and loved him, inexpressibly sad message, "Colonel Walter is amongst the dead of the last twenty-four hours." The noble, brave-hearted man who had, on the breaking out of the great epidemic of 1878, stretched out his hands and bid all the affrighted refugees from fever-stricken points to come to Holly Springs as a place of refuge, lay dead with his lace to the foe. There were some of us whose hearts stood still as we read, and whose eyes filled with tears of anguish, and to whom it was a bitter d iv as to those in a lonely house from which loved ones had departed. We knew that be was ill, but bad refused to believe that any harm could come to Aim; others might die, but surely our dear old friend would pass through the fire, us he had passed over a score of battlefield* unscathed. "A thousand shall fall beside thee, and ten thousand at thy right hand, but it shall not come nigh thee," were the words with which we comforted ourselves, when we learned that the dreaded fever had made its appearance at Holly Springs ; but alas, we were doomed to experience a bitter disappointment. God's ways are not our ways, and He took whom it seemed to Him best should be taken. Those of us who remain to set up the curtains of our Tabernacle, performing the duty which Freemasonry dictates, submitting, with resigna'.ion, to the Supreme Grand High Priest's will, endeavor to place on record our estimate of his worth and to testify our affection for him. Companion Walter was born in Fairfield county, Ohio, on the 21st day of May, 1819, but a few years later his parents settled at Kalamazoo, Michigan, where his early years were spent. An unfortunate investment consumed his lather's entire fortune, and at the age of fourteen our Companion began the battle of life, which he thenceforth fought without parental assistance. Having completed his college course, he came to Mississippi, earning his living by teaching school, while preparing for his admission to the bar. Soon after receiving his license to practice law, in the year 1840, he located at Holly Springs, and from that time his name is inseparably interwoven with the history of his State and county.
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=HUIuAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&hl=en&pg=GBS.PR17
This is the source.
Victim of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1878.
(Anne Walter Fearn, from her autobiography, "My Days of Strength: An American Woman Doctor's Forty Years in China")
A small girl with cropped, curly hair was perched precariously on the edge of the veranda. Her hands were folded primly in the lap of her starched white dress and she was being very quiet because she was supposed to be safe inside the house with her three sisters and her little brother. But the excitement in the air had been too strong to resist; like a magnet it had drawn her out of doors. Half hidden by a pillar she listened to the strange sounds; she heard the rush of many feet, the rising murmur of the confused crowd that filled the yard. She watched the townspeople mill around the man on the steps, imploring him to stay with them. She looked up into the man's face and thought of lions, so wonderful were his eyes, so full of power and strength.
I was that eleven-year-old child, and the man was my father, Colonel Harvey Washington Walter. That was my last sight of him, standing there with his three grown sons behind him, and telling his neighbors as long as life lasted he and his sons would remain there with them.
I didn't know then why the women cried, why the men walked about with faces drawn and tense. Later I was to learn. That was the summer of 1878, the never-to-be-forgotten year, when the terror of the South – yellow fever – raged all around us.
New Orleans, a constant victim of its ravages, was in the grip of an epidemic and slowly the disease had made its way northward. Holly Springs, with the highest altitude in Mississippi and heretofore immune, grew apprehensive as first Grenada, then Water Valley, and finally Oxford, the university town thirty miles to the south, were stricken. My father, the ruling spirit of Holly Springs, had been away somewhere at court. He returned to find that in his absence his fellow citizens had established a shotgun quarantine. Grieved by this seeming heartlessness, and strong in his faith in the immunity of our hills, he had induced them to raise the quarantine and welcome refugees from the neighboring towns. Soon sporadic cases appeared in our midst, and then the courthouse bell tolled ominously; the epidemic was upon us.
The morning after the meeting on our front lawn my mother, with the younger children, took "the last train that stopped." It was all very thrilling to a little girl who liked things to happen, whose mind was stirred by adventure then and always, and who didn't realize the seriousness of that trip or the tragedy left behind. My father and older brothers stayed on, as my father had promised, tending the sick and burying the dead. Our house was turned into a hospital. Every household was in mourning and in many cases whole families were blotted out. But it was not until the frost had fallen, the greatest danger past, and the end of the epidemic in sight that my father and brothers fell ill with the fever. Then, within one week, all four were dead.
My mother was left desolate. Of our homecoming I cannot speak.
We were in Huntsville when the first mail reached us in all those weeks of exile. Even before the news came my mother had an experience that made an indelible impression on me. I usually slept in the same room with Mother and I was awakened suddenly one night by her cry. My married sister Minnie (Mrs. H.C. Myers), who had joined us there, was in the next room. She came at once and I was shifted to another room. It was not until many years later that I dared ask my mother about that night. She hesitated before replying and then said,
"It distresses me to speak of it, but since you asked, I will tell you that I was awakened by a light that shone about your father, who stretched out his arms to me and said, "Dona, my wife, it has come upon me like a thief in the night."
Among the letters we received in that first batch of mail was one from my father to my mother. It began: "Dona, my wife, it has come upon me like a thief in the night."
During that long, sad autumn I have fleeting memories of my mother wandering drearily from room to room in that big house which had been so easily filled by the presence of the large-hearted man who was gone. It was years before we heard her laugh again.
********************************************************
In the stillness of the preceding night a few sparks of electricity flashed over the wires, and all the civilized world read on the morning of the 20th of September last, the brief, hut to us who knew and loved him, inexpressibly sad message, "Colonel Walter is amongst the dead of the last twenty-four hours." The noble, brave-hearted man who had, on the breaking out of the great epidemic of 1878, stretched out his hands and bid all the affrighted refugees from fever-stricken points to come to Holly Springs as a place of refuge, lay dead with his lace to the foe. There were some of us whose hearts stood still as we read, and whose eyes filled with tears of anguish, and to whom it was a bitter d iv as to those in a lonely house from which loved ones had departed. We knew that be was ill, but bad refused to believe that any harm could come to Aim; others might die, but surely our dear old friend would pass through the fire, us he had passed over a score of battlefield* unscathed. "A thousand shall fall beside thee, and ten thousand at thy right hand, but it shall not come nigh thee," were the words with which we comforted ourselves, when we learned that the dreaded fever had made its appearance at Holly Springs ; but alas, we were doomed to experience a bitter disappointment. God's ways are not our ways, and He took whom it seemed to Him best should be taken. Those of us who remain to set up the curtains of our Tabernacle, performing the duty which Freemasonry dictates, submitting, with resigna'.ion, to the Supreme Grand High Priest's will, endeavor to place on record our estimate of his worth and to testify our affection for him. Companion Walter was born in Fairfield county, Ohio, on the 21st day of May, 1819, but a few years later his parents settled at Kalamazoo, Michigan, where his early years were spent. An unfortunate investment consumed his lather's entire fortune, and at the age of fourteen our Companion began the battle of life, which he thenceforth fought without parental assistance. Having completed his college course, he came to Mississippi, earning his living by teaching school, while preparing for his admission to the bar. Soon after receiving his license to practice law, in the year 1840, he located at Holly Springs, and from that time his name is inseparably interwoven with the history of his State and county.
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=HUIuAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&hl=en&pg=GBS.PR17
This is the source.
(Anne Walter Fearn, from her autobiography, "My Days of Strength: An American Woman Doctor's Forty Years in China")
A small girl with cropped, curly hair was perched precariously on the edge of the veranda. Her hands were folded primly in the lap of her starched white dress and she was being very quiet because she was supposed to be safe inside the house with her three sisters and her little brother. But the excitement in the air had been too strong to resist; like a magnet it had drawn her out of doors. Half hidden by a pillar she listened to the strange sounds; she heard the rush of many feet, the rising murmur of the confused crowd that filled the yard. She watched the townspeople mill around the man on the steps, imploring him to stay with them. She looked up into the man's face and thought of lions, so wonderful were his eyes, so full of power and strength.
I was that eleven-year-old child, and the man was my father, Colonel Harvey Washington Walter. That was my last sight of him, standing there with his three grown sons behind him, and telling his neighbors as long as life lasted he and his sons would remain there with them.
I didn't know then why the women cried, why the men walked about with faces drawn and tense. Later I was to learn. That was the summer of 1878, the never-to-be-forgotten year, when the terror of the South – yellow fever – raged all around us.
New Orleans, a constant victim of its ravages, was in the grip of an epidemic and slowly the disease had made its way northward. Holly Springs, with the highest altitude in Mississippi and heretofore immune, grew apprehensive as first Grenada, then Water Valley, and finally Oxford, the university town thirty miles to the south, were stricken. My father, the ruling spirit of Holly Springs, had been away somewhere at court. He returned to find that in his absence his fellow citizens had established a shotgun quarantine. Grieved by this seeming heartlessness, and strong in his faith in the immunity of our hills, he had induced them to raise the quarantine and welcome refugees from the neighboring towns. Soon sporadic cases appeared in our midst, and then the courthouse bell tolled ominously; the epidemic was upon us.
The morning after the meeting on our front lawn my mother, with the younger children, took "the last train that stopped." It was all very thrilling to a little girl who liked things to happen, whose mind was stirred by adventure then and always, and who didn't realize the seriousness of that trip or the tragedy left behind. My father and older brothers stayed on, as my father had promised, tending the sick and burying the dead. Our house was turned into a hospital. Every household was in mourning and in many cases whole families were blotted out. But it was not until the frost had fallen, the greatest danger past, and the end of the epidemic in sight that my father and brothers fell ill with the fever. Then, within one week, all four were dead.
My mother was left desolate. Of our homecoming I cannot speak.
We were in Huntsville when the first mail reached us in all those weeks of exile. Even before the news came my mother had an experience that made an indelible impression on me. I usually slept in the same room with Mother and I was awakened suddenly one night by her cry. My married sister Minnie (Mrs. H.C. Myers), who had joined us there, was in the next room. She came at once and I was shifted to another room. It was not until many years later that I dared ask my mother about that night. She hesitated before replying and then said,
"It distresses me to speak of it, but since you asked, I will tell you that I was awakened by a light that shone about your father, who stretched out his arms to me and said, "Dona, my wife, it has come upon me like a thief in the night."
Among the letters we received in that first batch of mail was one from my father to my mother. It began: "Dona, my wife, it has come upon me like a thief in the night."
During that long, sad autumn I have fleeting memories of my mother wandering drearily from room to room in that big house which had been so easily filled by the presence of the large-hearted man who was gone. It was years before we heard her laugh again.
********************************************************
In the stillness of the preceding night a few sparks of electricity flashed over the wires, and all the civilized world read on the morning of the 20th of September last, the brief, hut to us who knew and loved him, inexpressibly sad message, "Colonel Walter is amongst the dead of the last twenty-four hours." The noble, brave-hearted man who had, on the breaking out of the great epidemic of 1878, stretched out his hands and bid all the affrighted refugees from fever-stricken points to come to Holly Springs as a place of refuge, lay dead with his lace to the foe. There were some of us whose hearts stood still as we read, and whose eyes filled with tears of anguish, and to whom it was a bitter d iv as to those in a lonely house from which loved ones had departed. We knew that be was ill, but bad refused to believe that any harm could come to Aim; others might die, but surely our dear old friend would pass through the fire, us he had passed over a score of battlefield* unscathed. "A thousand shall fall beside thee, and ten thousand at thy right hand, but it shall not come nigh thee," were the words with which we comforted ourselves, when we learned that the dreaded fever had made its appearance at Holly Springs ; but alas, we were doomed to experience a bitter disappointment. God's ways are not our ways, and He took whom it seemed to Him best should be taken. Those of us who remain to set up the curtains of our Tabernacle, performing the duty which Freemasonry dictates, submitting, with resigna'.ion, to the Supreme Grand High Priest's will, endeavor to place on record our estimate of his worth and to testify our affection for him. Companion Walter was born in Fairfield county, Ohio, on the 21st day of May, 1819, but a few years later his parents settled at Kalamazoo, Michigan, where his early years were spent. An unfortunate investment consumed his lather's entire fortune, and at the age of fourteen our Companion began the battle of life, which he thenceforth fought without parental assistance. Having completed his college course, he came to Mississippi, earning his living by teaching school, while preparing for his admission to the bar. Soon after receiving his license to practice law, in the year 1840, he located at Holly Springs, and from that time his name is inseparably interwoven with the history of his State and county.
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=HUIuAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&hl=en&pg=GBS.PR17
This is the source.
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