My Mother’s sister Aunt Lulu Thornburgh had been living with [my gradmother]. She had been a complete invalid for several years. She was stricken with inflammatory rheumatism of a very bad sort which left her joints all stiff; not one would bend. She had to be fed and lifted and put to bed. She was a very great care, but in all her long life she never bemoaned her lot or made life miserable for others with complaints or bad humor. She too is one of my earliest memories and how we children loved to bring things and do things for her.
After [Aunt Lulu’s] mother’s death she would stay with my uncle Warren Thornburgh part of the time and with my mother part of the time. Sometimes she would visit another brother, Eli. My sister Ruth cared for her in her later years. Aunt Lou lived to be ninety-two years of age and helpless for seventy of those years.
