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Directions:Our family moved from Clay County to Laurel County in 1943. I was born June 1, 1943, the fourteenth in a family of sixteen. (Twin daughters, Martha and Rosa, died at the age of six months from whooping cough. Two sons were stillborn.) In December of 1943, when the family was preparing to move, I became gravely ill with spinal meningitis. Vernon told of taking Mom and me down the mountain, riding mules. At the foot of the hill we met Lacy Abner who took us to Manchester to Dr. Turner. Vernon said he wanted to go with us but Mom insisted he take the mules back home. Dr. Turner said my only hope was a new drug just developed and not available in Manchester. Dad traveled by bus to Richmond to get penicillin. I was soon recovering. Dr. Turner kept Mom and me for a time under quarantine, at his own house. After Christmas we were sent to Grandmother and Grandfather Philpot's for a time.
I learned last year that Ellis had meningitis while in the navy aboard a ship. Penicillin became widely used during the war for sick and wounded soldiers. Perhaps Orus (wounded in action), Otis (wounded in action), Ellis and I were all helped by the discovery of penicillin. Only when the need was so great during World War II was Sir Alexander Fleming's discovery funded and approved for volume production.
Otis told about moving to Laurel County. He left Clay County hauling Dad's sow and pigs. He hauled them in a horse wagon with the swine enclosed in a wooden crate. When Dad met him in Laurel County, he only had the old sow named Frona. Dad asked about the pigs. Otis gave him a check and told him he had sold them on the way and said "I needed to lighten my load." Otis and Vernon drove the cattle (on foot) from Clay County to Laurel County. Otis said it took them about a day to herd them to Laurel County. |
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