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On the L & N south bound, while rumbling between Louisville and Elizabethton, Kentucky, the boys asleep on each side of a snoring, sleeping Solon, gave Lou, across the seat, a picture that caused her eyes to moisten and her throat to tighten. She smiled through the tears out the train window toward the luminous full moon and said to herself, "Nothing can separate. . . . " She noted Joe's swarthy flesh tone and Joe's paleness in the light through the window as they traveled southward. The faithful full moon provided illumination along the darkened countryside until joined by the morning star as the train rolled slowly to stop in Pulaski. Home was thirty miles away and Alex in the new Sunday carriage was waiting.

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"Come on Joe, slow down, will ya?" Jim wheezed as the sixteen-year-old dropped, coughing violently on the limestone wall along side the road. He was extremely red-faced and gasping for breath when his twin brother retraced the twenty feet between them. Joe was filled with zest and Jim was well on his way to being a very sick teen who may or may not see adulthood. Dr. Stone had delivered the judgment in the winter - 'Consumption'. Solon and Lou knew there was little that could be done, but they determined to do what could be. They could send him to Murfreesboro to the sanatorium but he'd hate it there. Dr. Stone offered them his ideas on how to combat tuberculosis. Solon and Lou followed his guidance. Strict attention to sanitary conditions, good and abundant thoroughly cooked food from the canned goods made by Mama Bear and Nancy Bird in winter and vegetables from the garden in summer. All cooking and drinking water was boiled and there was to be cleaning and disinfecting of all things possible. The Stevenson family restructured their way of life. Nancy Bird occupied the position of primary care giver for her grandson reading everything Dr. Stone could provide her on the disease and how to treat it. Mama Bear became her daughter's chief assistant and Aunt Mary, their relief nurse. Alex assumed an enhanced status as uncle and companion. Grand became more than ever Lou's aide and counselor. Jim's father, Solon, stayed home more, limiting his mission work to January through spring. Brother Joe, with gauze mask, read to him and they discussed what was read and everything they could come up with was talked about. Lou operated even more as the no nonsense chief of operations of household and livelihood. The big things were discussed with her husband, but she was the director in chief of family life. Everybody knew and accepted that. She had earned her status as "Beloved Woman".




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