In December of 1902 my mother gave birth to her thirteenth and last baby. In the fall before the baby’s birth my brother Fred got badly burned. He didn’t like to sleep in a gown, always wanting to leave on his little pants, so Mother made him a pretty red nightgown. It was this gown that caused the awful accident, which nearly killed my baby brother. It was early morning and as little brother stood directly in front of the King Heater with all drafts open, his gown became ignited.
His screams woke my parents, and Father smothered out the fire, but Freddie was badly burned. For two months Mother nursed him and bandaged his terrible sore side. I can still hear his moans and cries; he suffered so terribly at first. This was bad for Mother in her condition.
When her baby came, it lived only a minute. It was a girl and weighed fourteen pounds but had blue scars on her face. Old timers said it was marked by the burns of little brother. These things are disputed now-a-days. My father and I took the little casket to Patterson on a cold and wintry December day and buried her beside my other little sister Ethel and my sister’s baby, Sarah Edith. My mother would not have named this baby, but I named her Merle Kathleen, the thirteenth child in our family.
