by Dani Larsen
"Yes, Pa, we will get on it right away." Helen, John, and Joe were wiping their eyes as they headed toward the barn.
"Mary, you and George, get in here and help me." Anna said, and the two little ones followed their mother inside the house. All of the children were feeling really bad about what happened, as they could hear their brother crying and knew he was in pain.
"They may have to keep him overnight, Anna, so don't worry If I don't come back tonight. I will stay there and bring him home in the morning. The nearest hospital is Oregon City, and that is quite a drive. Can you handle things until tomorrow?"
"Yes, Pa, we will take care of it. Everything will be fine. Just take care of Bert, please."
But everything wouldn't be fine. Nothing would ever be the same.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
"A Time to Mourn"
When George got Bert to the hospital, it was early evening and there were many people waiting to be seen in the large waiting room. Bert had been crying silently with tears running down his face. His father carried the seven year old into the large waiting room and over to the check-in desk, where the nurse took Bert's name and wrote down that he probably had a broken leg.
"Sorry, it is going to be a while before we can see him. As you can see, there is quite a line of sick people in front of you. We will see him as soon as possible."
Bert sat on his father's lap with tears welling up in his eyes as he buried his face in his father's shirt. He tried not to think about the horrible pain in his leg as he didn't want to cry. He kept taking deep breaths to try to stop the tears. The fresh smell of the clean shirt that his father had quickly put on before they left mixed with his comforting familiar scents calmed him down. His pa smelled like the cows that he tenderly took care of every day. Bert tried to concentrate on other things as he waited to be treated. What would he be doing when he grew up? Would he have a limp from this broken leg? Or would he be crippled from it? Would his leg stop him from having a happy life? He finally fell asleep despite the horrific pain that ran from his hip down his leg.
Two hours later they called his name, and his father carried him into the small room where the nurse led them. They waited for another half an hour before someone came in to see them. They could hear crying and moaning, and people coughing throughout the ten rooms that were in that section. They weren't actually rooms but they were stalls with curtains drawn between the rooms that were lined up around the walls. Each stall had a cot up against the wall. The open side showed them that there were three nurses and one doctor who went from stall to stall treating patients. The four hospital workers would then go back to the center of the room where they retrieved what they needed from four sets of shelves that held sheets, blankets, bandages, and other necessities that were needed to treat their patients.
George carefully laid Bert down on the cold, hard cot that had a small pillow at one end, and then he stood by his son's side, trying to comfort him.
The doctor came in with one of the nurses and George could tell they were in a big hurry.
"What happened here, young man?" The doctor spoke to Bert first.
"My brothers and sisters and I were playing 'Annie-Annie-Over', and I was on top of the garage knocking the ball from side to side when I fell off."
"Well, Son, maybe this will teach you to not play such foolish games anymore."
Bert burst into tears, as he was already feeling very guilty about putting his family through this ordeal.
"I don't think the boy needs to hear that right now, he just needs to get his leg fixed." George said with a stern voice.
The doctor looked disgusted. "I'm sorry, sir, but we have a lot of sick people here, and it is hard to have to take care of things that shouldn't have happened in the first place. I suggest you keep your children off of roofs."
George had to bite his tongue as there were some angry words forming in his mind. He just wanted to get his boy fixed and home to Anna, whom he knew would be very worried.
Bert screamed as they set his leg back into place and then sewed up his leg where the broken bone had popped out above his knee. Then the nurse held it in place while the doctor wrapped it and put a cast on all the way up and down his leg. Bert was exhausted when they were done, but his leg felt better than it had. The nurse gave him two aspirin and a glass of water and told him to swallow them.
The doctor left without saying another word, and the nurse came in with two crutches.
"You can buy these crutches for five dollars for the pair, or put a two dollar deposit on them and return them to get your money back at the end of six weeks. If you don't return them you will be charged the three dollars the next time you come in here."
"We will return them in six weeks."
"You should bring him back here at that time, and we will remove the cast. If he has any other problems in the meantime, see a local doctor. And Bert, don't be doing anything stupid while your leg is healing. No climbing on things. Just let your leg heal, okay?"
"Yes, ma'am." Bert looked at her with those big brown eyes, and she softened up a little and patted him on the head.
She told him to stand up, and George held him while the nurse showed him how to walk with the crutches. After a few tries he figured it out, and she led them to the woman who sat at a desk in the waiting room, on their way out.
After the nurse explained what had been done, the woman said they owed a total of twelve dollars for the cast and the deposit on the crutches. George opened his wallet and took out twelve one dollar bills. That left him with three dollars in his wallet. He smiled as he handed the woman the money, and she wrote out a receipt.
It was almost midnight when they pulled into the long drive that led to their house. The light was still on in the kitchen, and Anna was dozing in the rocking chair in the living room drinking a cup of tea. She stood up when the back door opened.
George was carrying his sleeping son in the door. Anna had made up the sofa for him to sleep on for a few days, and she pulled back the cover and fluffed up the pillow as George laid Bert carefully on the sofa, and Anna covered him up. Bert opened his eyes and smiled at his mama.
"I'm okay, Mama. I'm so sorry that I fell off the roof."
"It is okay, Bert. I'm just glad you are okay." Anna leaned over and kissed her son on the forehead and tucked the covers around his shoulders.
George went back out to the car and retrieved the crutches and laid them on the floor in front of the sofa where Bert was already sound asleep.
Little George woke him up in the morning.
"Does it hurt, Bert? Are you gonna be crippled?"
"I hope not, Georgie, and yes it does hurt. Where's Mama, I need some aspirin."
George went to tell his mother, who was at the stove fixing breakfast. She brought Bert a glass of water and two aspirin as his other siblings came in from outside where they had been doing their chores.
"Bert, I'm so sorry you got hurt." Joe came over to talk to his little brother. "It was my fault you fell. I'm the one who threw the ball that time. I feel terrible. I should have been the one on the roof."
"No, Joe, it wasn't your fault. I reached too far for the ball. The doctor told me that none of us should have been on the roof at all. He was really grouchy."
They all tried to comfort him, and Helen brought over his plate with two fried eggs and two pieces of toasted bread.
"Thank you, Helen."
"Glad you are going to be okay, little brother."
His sister kissed him on the head, and he blushed as he started to eat his breakfast. The children left for school after they ate, and Joe promised to get his work from the teacher so he could do it at home.
Three days later, Bert started running a fever and complaining of a sore throat. Anna rubbed some camphor on his chest and kept giving him aspirin for his fever. The children often caught colds during the winter so she thought that he had caught it at the hospital, as George said there were a lot of people coughing while they were
there.
Two days later, he was coughing until he almost choked and all of the other children began complaining that their throats were hurting too, and Anna found herself with a house full of sick children. A few days after that, she and George were feeling awful too.
Anna was running a fever as she went from bed to bed putting a poultice on their chests, delivering aspirins, and bringing bowls of soup and dried bread to the children. Bert started to get better after a week, but the older children seemed to be a lot sicker than he had been, especially Joe.
There was a chorus of barking coughs one morning as Anna went to check on her children, feeling very ill herself. When she got to Joe's bed and saw his swollen jaws and heard him gasping for air, she ran outside to call George, who was milking the cows despite his own sore throat and fever. She ran to the barn.
"George, come quick, Joe is really sick. I think he needs to go to the hospital."
When George saw that Joe's breathing was so shallow they could hardly hear it, and his jaws were swollen all the way down his neck, he wrapped him in a blanket and carried him out to the car.
"Come on, Anna, we are all going to the hospital."
The five other children piled into the backseat with blankets to cover them. Joe was hardly moving as George carried the eleven year old out to the car and laid him in his mother's lap. The family prayed all the way to the hospital, and Anna couldn't stop crying because she was so worried about her little boy.
When they reached the hospital, George told the children to stay in the car until he came to get them, and he carried Joe in with Anna right behind. When a nurse saw them enter through the main door, she met them in the middle of the room.
"My son! Save my son!" Anna cried.
"It smells like diphtheria to me." The nurse said, as she helped George carry the boy into the back and to a free bed.
The doctor came in immediately, and put his stethoscope to Joe's chest. Anna was scared to death. "Not diphtheria! Oh, no! Lord, please save my children!" She sobbed out loud.
After about five minutes, the doctor took the stethoscope out of his ears and turned to George and Anna.
"I am very sorry. It is too late for this boy. He is gone. There is nothing I could have done for him anyway. Are you both sick too?"
Anna began howling pitifully. George had tears in his eyes, as he put his arms around his devastated wife.
"We all have it, Doctor. My other five children are in the car. We must have caught it here when I brought my other son in with a broken leg last week."
"Yes, we have had quite a few cases in the last couple of weeks. There is a new vaccine out, but we haven't got our shipment of it yet. Don't bring your children in. I will go look at them in the car. Are any of them as sick as this boy was?"
"No, I don't think so. They are just coughing and have sore throats and a fever. None of them are swollen up like Joe was." George could hardly talk, and Anna sat in the chair sobbing.
The doctor took a sheet out from under the hard cot that Joe was lying on and covered the boy from head to toe.
"Diphtheria can be very deadly, and yet many people only get a sore throat and cough for a week or so. Your son's throat closed up on him so that he couldn't breathe, and it caused his heart to stop working properly. It looks like it might have caused some paralysis also. I am very sorry."
George sat down next to Anna and took her in his arms. He tried not to cry out loud for Anna's sake, but tears flowed freely down his face.
"I will go and see if I think any of your other children need to be hospitalized, and then I will return. Please stay in here as we don't want this to spread any faster than it has. I will send the mortician in to talk to you about what happens next."
The doctor saw the car full of children parked in front of the hospital door.
"Are you the Hempe children?"
"Yes, how is our brother?" Helen spoke first.
"Your father will explain when he returns. I want to make sure none of you are as sick as your brother." All of the children were coughing and had raspy voices. "Are any of you having trouble breathing?"
They all answered one at a time. "No."
"Please open your mouths for me." The doctor was looking for white or gray patches in their throats, which was a symptom for worsening of the disease.
"Okay, I think you are all going to be fine. I want you to stay home from school, and stay in the house and get some rest. Your home will be quarantined which means no one can come to visit you, and you cannot go outside. This is how we will prevent this disease from spreading any further."
"Why? What do we have?" John asked.
"You have diphtheria, and it spreads rapidly. I notice that you, young man, have a cast on your leg. Did you come here to have your leg fixed?"
"Yes, sir, I did." Bert spoke with a raspy voice. "My pa brought me here a week or so ago."
"I imagine you were the first one to get sick, as you probably caught it when you were here getting your leg fixed."
"Can any of you drive this car?"
"Yes, sir, I can." John spoke up.
"Please move the car away from the front door and park it. Your parents will come out in a little while. In the meantime, please stay in the car and talk to no one."
"Yes, sir." They all spoke in unison.
The mortician was talking to George and Anna when the doctor went back into the room. He was wearing a handkerchief over his face. They were still sitting on the chairs, and George was holding onto Anna as if he thought she would faint.
"I can take care of your son's body and take him to the cemetery and have him buried. By law, he must be buried soon, especially since he had a contagious disease. As you will be quarantined, I'm afraid none of you will be able to attend the burial. Where would you like to have him buried? And would you like any services performed at his gravesite?"
Anna's sorrow at hearing that she couldn't even attend her son's burial came out in a loud moan. George held her closer and kept patting her back as his own tears kept flowing.
"We are Catholic, and we live in Sandy. He must be buried at a Catholic cemetery close to us, so that we can go to his grave after our quarantine is lifted. Father Phillips, from St. Michael's in Sandy, is our pastor, and I would like him to have a service at his grave."
"I will contact Father Phillips. He has a telephone at his residence, and I will pick him up and take him to the cemetery with me. There is a small Catholic Cemetery on Powell Boulevard, this side of Gresham called St. Joseph's Cemetery, where we can have him buried."
Anna cried out loud again at her son's name.
"If you would like, I can bring the casket by your home with Father Phillips and he can say a few prayers from a distance while you all listen from your doorway. I will send you a bill later, and we can make arrangements for payment after you are all out of quarantine, if that is all right?"
"Yes, that would be fine."
"What was your son's full name, and when was he born?"
"Joseph Anthony Hempe and he was born in June of 1913."
"Thank you, sir, and again you both have my deepest sympathies. A man will come in and get more information from you, and then I will see you in a couple of days when we stop by your home on the way to the cemetery."
George helped Anna walk over to the cot where Joseph's body was. George pulled the sheet off of his son's face, so they could say their goodbyes to their son, and Anna leaned over and kissed her son's swollen face as her tears flowed down her cheeks.
"Goodbye, my beautiful boy. I will miss you forever!"
George leaned over and kissed him on the forehead and then brought the sheet back up over his head. An orderly came in wearing a mask and nodded at them as he wheeled the bed out of the stall. George and Anna held each other tightly as they both sobbed loudly.
An hour later, George and Anna left the hospital and realized they would have to tell their other children what happened when they arrived at the car. Five pairs
of worried eyes met theirs, as George helped Anna get into the vehicle. Anna began crying again as George spoke to the children.
"I'm afraid I have some bad news for all of you. I don't know of any better way to say this, so I'm just going to say it. I'm so sorry to have to tell you that your beloved brother has died of this disease."
The car was filled with gasps and moans, and the long trip home was the worst ever for the Hempe family. It was hard for George to drive as the sobbing from his wife and his children was almost more than he could bear.
Helen had been so close to Joe as they were only a year apart in age that she was devastated. She couldn't believe her brother was gone. She felt sick inside, and she just wanted to go to her room and stay there and cry. What will I do without my little Joe? I can't be without him, she thought. Her heart hurt so deeply, she didn't think it would ever be the same.
Joe had been Bert's hero. His older brother had always been so kind to him. He was the one who had been the most sympathetic when he came home from the hospital after breaking his leg. His thoughts were filled with guilt; I killed him, I gave Joe this disease. It is my fault. If I hadn't reached for that ball and fallen off of the roof, I wouldn't have broken my leg and went to the hospital and brought diphtheria home to Joe. I will never forgive myself. Bert sobbed and sobbed as the guilt overcame him, and he realized he would never see his dear brother again.
The next few days were the worst for the family. Joe's death was bad enough, but now they could not even go to his graveside service, and they were all sick and could not go outside at all to do their chores. Anna made meals in a state of shock. Tears streamed down her face as she walked around the house in a state of silence. She just couldn't seem to talk. If she spoke, it was one or two words. She knew if she spoke she would break down totally. George had stood outside the neighbor's house and yelled until the man came to the door. He then told him to just listen and to not come closer to him. He told him what had happened and asked him if he could milk his cows and take care of the dairy for a few days until the family was out of quarantine. The neighbor said he would round up a couple of others and that they would take care of everything for them.
