The Cause

Fifty one people reportedly died in Brooklyn in one week in June, 1850. The official recount given by the Health Inspector's office detailed the deaths of 32 males and 19 females, 18 adults and 33 children.

The reasons of death included the term “causality” which, I can only assume, meant there was a nondescript if not tragic human act that proceeded the end result. Other presumably less human-inspired causes included constipation, drowning, dysentery, heart disease, hooping cough, hemorrhages, old age, premature birth, teething, something that looks like “sprue” but I can't really make it out, congestions of the brain and lungs, croup, various inflammations of the body, convulsions, still birth, and three people, specifically, of “dropsy of the head”.

I'm still confounded by this term “dropsy” but this is the kind of muddy information I waded through as I was pondering what suddenly took the life of my ancestor who first came to this country in 1855.

I know where he is buried. I know that he was barely 40 years old when he died. I accept the family story that he and his family all wandered into the USA in New York sometime in the year 1855. I assume he landed a few months before the opening of Castle Garden since I can find no customs record or ship's manifest which lists his name. I understand that chances are good he and his family just stepped off a boat at the pier, gathered their meager belongings and walked on into the American wilderness.

There is no good explanation of why he chose his final destination. Again, I can find no land deed with his name on it. I assume he rented a spot of farmland and worked it the best he could. He was a practiced farmer, I do know that. I expect that he was a creature of stern habit, that he struggled in this vast country as he had in his crowded homeland. I imagine as he began his new life in freedom that he lived the American Dream like every diligent immigrant before and after him, saved what little extra income he acquired, and hoped to someday purchase his own spread.

But I don't know why they buried him 5 years later.

There were many good excuses to die in 1860 America. Numerous sad excuses were remarkably cataloged and stored by official inspectors. Flipping through all the common explanations makes one think it was a rather tough time back then. People were regularly kicked in the head by bulls or mules, dropped to their death from the roofs of barns, or were overcome by the flames and fumes of burning buildings. Of course, there was a number who met the wrong end of a bullet or canon ball as the nation turned against itself and even some who had unfortunate meetings with curious natives.

Many of the descriptions from that era are a bit maddening. I read one story from around this time of a young farm hand who accidentally fell down to the bottom of a deep well he had been digging somewhere in Virginia. Rescuers managed to snare him and lift him by rope to the nearly the top of the well before he slipped from their grasp, vanishing again into the dark abyss and was never heard from or seen again.

Oh, so close ...

Dying as my otherwise healthy ancestor did in Wisconsin just 5 years after arrival in the US, with no remarkable or fantastic family story passed down amongst his descendants, with no references to violence at the hands of savages or vague altercations with stubborn animals, I assume that he succumbed to one of the prevalent diseases of the day. The era of his death was a few years before a practical microscope was even available to doctors and odd diseases were not easily explained, sometimes merely attributed to God's greater plan. If there ever was an understandable excuse given for his death, it most likely sounded close to “he got sick and died” and that mildly confusing explanation of “dropsy” could easily be lost or forgotten over time.

The reason, like the endless Health Office reports concerning the nameless, faceless children of antique Brooklyn, was not really important to anyone at the time. (I say faceless but I expect any person like me can imagine exactly what these children's faces looked like.) I know the cause of my ancestor's death in Waterloo, Wisconsin, a few weeks before the end of 1860 is only important to me. As a result of my research, I realized it is the seminal event in our history which sent his sons and daughters scrambling across this country in search of their own greener pastures.

But even now, when death does not necessarily instigate the uprooting of established families, as a person's death is reported I often hear shocked parties ask an earnest question: “How did it happen?”

... Although I can't quite put my finger on it, somewhere hidden in this curiosity surrounding The Cause lies an important lesson for us all ...

Just as this new year began, my computer's hard drive crashed. Instead of spinning up as normal, it would just hum a pitiful and repetitive tune when urged to awake. To my naïve musical ear, the irritating noise was somewhere between the familiar “My Sharona” beat of an old Wang that I used to work on and the more intimidating opening percussion of a “Red House” version by the great Jimmy Hendrix. But The Cause was quickly dismissed in this case. Taking advantage of the opportunity, I purchased a new, bigger hard drive rather cheaply and have been happily filling up it's virgin memory with more and more bits of pointless and unpublishable blather. But, for a hellish gap there, I was also without internet access.

About the same time, I crossed the treacherous Indian Nations to visit my fabulous cousin in Texas, one of the few souls in this world who fearlessly confronts my unsociable behavior with an often dramatic passion, on the occasion of her 50th birthday. It was an extravagant and opulent affair, not the kind of seedy, drunken seafarer's festival that I'm accustomed to but I had a good time seeing all the relatives, new and old, in any case.

While boarding in the secure upper loft at my cousin's mansion on the comfortable east side of the Big City, being the thoughtful host that she is, she offered me her laptop and free access to her rarely used Ancestry.com account. (I hope spilling those beans doesn't get her in trouble ... it's hard to speculate what amount of typical human kindness can get people into trouble with copyright lawyers these days.) But while I was head-down, anxiously cruising through massive crew lists of whaling ships in 19th century Bedford, MA, I took the opportunity to read some backed-up email that I was previously unable to access.

It was then that I learned that my good friend for many years, the man I have called The Padre, at one time my own personal spiritual adviser and a tireless fanatic of the White Sox baseball club, died suddenly during my travels to Texas.

I read the straight-forward email from his wife and was immediately submerged in a cold sea of shock, confusion, guilt, sadness ... eh, you know that simple human tune.

Instantly, I began rummaging my brain for some consolation. I recalled our very first encounter in Monterey many moons ago and how I foolishly pleaded with him, of all people, to just loosen up a bit. I remembered his constant easy manner that I witnessed over the years, his quick chuckle, the way he would shake his head when I said or did stupid stuff. When we were together, he was the calm and respectful one while I could let my hair down completely. I remember once in Omaha, while I was dragging him through some of the rowdier establishments in the Old Market, how shocked I was to hear him ask what I was drinking before ordering the same for himself. Of course, he would not drink as much as I would but such common acceptance just further cemented our lifelong bond. I remember when the talk turned to personal imbalances, he would often remind me that my afflictions were merely behavioral, perhaps he would encourage, simply curable, while his were more deeply rooted. I recalled the last meeting we had in Chicago back in July of last year, a brisk evening of ball between the Sox and the Tigers at the Cell, the casual talk between us, the most excellent beer and tostadas con queso we shared. That night, like most of our hastily-arranged encounters, was particularly enjoyable ... no concrete result, vague plans to go fishing together in the spring, best wishes for the rest of the year ... a fitting end to our relationship, perhaps.

I came home and looked at the haunting books on my shelf, among them the few books that he “loaned” me over the years. Most of them neatly conspire to balance the spiritual with the non-spiritual, whatever that may be. He was a brilliant fellow, far smarter in the world of mathematics and science than I'll ever be. But some elementary things seemed to come easier to me and he would always remark on his admiration for the silly stuff he thought I had accomplished. He was by all means a devout believer in the certainty of things and I am not but he never tried to hound me on that point. He would listen to my arguments and I could detect the frail hint of uncertainty in his. He carried on well with his own calculable diseases and I know at times he suffered the loneliness and the selfishness which all our brothers share. We were good friends and it pains me to even spell out how much I will miss him ... at least that's what I think I am pained about.

As the event unfolded, his wife wrote me to explain how his death occurred. She and I are close only in the sense that we shared a friendship with The Padre and I assume she thought that I, like all the normal people out there, would be interested and consoled in that so I belatedly opened the emails and I read all the recorded details as patiently as I could.

She described how he became ill on a Sunday and was admitted to the hospital for tests on Monday. She explained how the doctors came to understand that he had a serious gall bladder infection and performed emergency surgery on Tuesday. She said the surgery went well and he was recovering satisfactorily when a blood clot formed and seized his heart on Friday. She confirmed it was very sudden and took everyone by surprise.

Well, in the end, I didn't find that description very consoling at all. Being the nerd that I am, I wondered how his death would have been defined if he had died in 19th century instead of the 21st. Would he have been assigned The Cause of a various infection or perhaps the latest statistical case of unusual dropsy?

Honestly, after consideration, The Cause, the specific medicinal nature of it, doesn't matter to me anymore.

What I now find important is that people like my good friend The Padre, just like my ancestors, lived and loved and hoped and dreamed. They succeeded rarely and failed often. They burst onto the scene of the passion play--and in a flash--they were gone--and they may live again only in our distant memories.

It's true that sometimes this life and death struggle encourages others to do bold things, to pack up and move, to look for greener pastures. Sometimes, though, it has no reportable impact. It simply once was and is now not no more. The Cause of it all may still disguise a far more important lesson and the pain may be more directly about the relevance to our own certain mortality ... but I just can't put my finger on it.

Not yet, anyway.

Adios Padre,
Mb