Arthur Mcdonald Shrum
Posted 13 May 2009 by Barbara Johnson
Taken from a letter written in Poteau Arkansas April 4-1954 by Arthur McDonald Shrum to my great grandmother Lucille Alice Shrum Holmes . Ida Mae Shrum Kirkland was their sister.

Dear Sis..poor Ida is dead, but poor ol' lizzy is still better. Yes Ida took bad again and just got worse and worse.They didn't write till just a few days before she died, but said they would write again in a day or 2.
I didn't hear til saturday am after she died Friday at about noon so we dont have any Sunday mail anymore and I didn't get it till today. Ida was buried yesterday.They tried to call me but somehow couldn't get through they did get thru to Poteau tho. easy. Lois works for the telephone office and has for years she wrote me too. i couldn't go even if I got the news the same day we have both had a worse spell. if you remember I took my indigestion in 1897 and I knew there was something wrong with the heart but didn't pay it any attention till after I took indigestion. that was when I got scared. I just sure thought that I would die and soon but of course I went to my Drs there at Kully KS. He gave me a tonic and told me that I would not get well for auite a while so I finally got over my scare and quit him and came out here (Potaeu Arkansas) and got better for a while. To shortin the story i never have been well nor never been examined for the trouble again till since we moved here we had the Dr. come here to see "ma' I mean Della 'we call her ma' so I let him examine me he said Enlarged Heart and Chronic indijestion and now of course fixed me up a lot of tonic and said it just might help but said he couldn't cure me and actually didn't seem to want to Dr. me. I suppose he had all the money he wanted, else he is awful honest. Now the other Dr. he is an old smart know it all that can pick out the sick ones in a bunch of folks and tell what is wrong with them out examining them. He just got one look at me and told Art he had better bring me down there that I had Acute heart diease but I didn't go i might ought to but I got so used to those palpatations I don't pay them any mind anymore. I do take a little Amonia when the beat gets to weak but sometimes it gets to loud  then the best thing I know is for something to happen that gets a fellows mind off of himself. oh well , nuff of that.
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