The Lost Survivor

While it was not unusual for a Victorian family of any social stratum to lose a child to now-preventable illnesses, Molly's family was hit again and again — siblings picked off like mechanical ducks in a pitiless shooting gallery.

Molly (pictured here) grew up as the third youngest of ten stair-step children. In that busy, bustling household, the siblings closest to her in age were her constant companions. Her brother Hugh was ten months older; her younger sisters were her tag-along responsibilities. The older children were a blur of bickering and caregiving. By the time the war started, she was essentially the only child in the house, the older ones scattered and her playmates gone.

Death records of the day were handwritten lamentations cloaked in cold, sometimes quaint, medical terminology. Grief was further complicated by prevailing social mores: the tacit belief that showing emotion was weakness, and the relentless, necessary demands of daily life.

Molly's survival as her closest siblings died inspired the character Ketta, the third strand in my book, Tangled Braid. Her peculiar sensitivity brought the dead siblings back as ghosts who began to assert themselves and become revelatory voices.

Combing through issues of the Wheeling Intelligencer from the 1870s and beyond, I discovered that the real Molly had written an endorsement of a Dr. Longdon whose ads promised treatment for — and prevention of — tuberculosis, cancer, and myriad chronic diseases. The easy availability and lack of regulation of opiates and cocaine-infused "medications" made addiction an unspoken thread through the lives of many families of the age. Without giving away too much, the real Molly's struggle to survive deep loss became the heart of Ketta's story.