Mabel Lyles Beall

White Church Cemetery Gate

My great grandmother Mabel died on Dec 11, 1920, at age 38. She married John Morgan Buchanan in 1902.  They were the parents of five children, George, Roy, Floy, James, and Mildred.  According to her death certificate she died of "pulmonary TB". Her youngest child Mildred was 10 years old at the time.

TB was also known as "consumption" or "galloping consumption".  Most patients were feverish and emaciated, their constant coughing causing pain in the lungs.  Coughing up thick white sputum in the beginning, and then coughing up blood.  Most had fevers and diarrhea and became very thin and pale causing their cheekbones to become prominent, and their eyes to look large.  Fatigue could be so severe that they could not get out of bed.  In Texas during the early 1900's, 4,000 people died of TB each year.  

It wasn't until 1882 that it was proven by Koch, that the disease was contagious.  Before that, it was thought to be hereditary, in other words, something you were born with.  After it became public knowledge that it could be easily spread through sputum, TB patients were isolated, and Sanitariums were built to house sufferers away from the general population and their families.  There was no cure at the time, and TB patients were treated with fresh air, rest and good food.  There were also lung surgeries performed including deflating the lungs in an attempt to stop the disease.  

TB patients wasted away over a period of time.  It was not usually a quick death.  As you can see from her death certificate, Mabel suffered for over a year with this disease.  During that time she was probably isolated in a Sanitarium and eventually died there.  

Mabel's Death Certificate

A cure for TB was not discovered until the 1950's.  With the new antibiotics, most people got well and went on to live normal lives.  This was 30 years too late for Mabel.  

 Her fourth child and youngest son was my grandfather,  James Lyles Buchanan.  Family stories tell that he left home at age eight in about 1915. He told his daughter (my mother) that his mother Mabel died in a Sanatorium. That makes sense in light of her TB diagnosis.

 Mabel's mother Geraldine, had been a patient at the North Texas Hospital for the Insane for over 20 years and died Jan 20, 1920. 11 Months later, Mabel died. A very sad time for the family. Could the added stress of her mother's death had an impact on Mabel's health deteriorating? I also wonder if she could have been a patient in the same Hospital/Sanatorium her mother was in?

 Mabel's daughter Floy was born in 1915.  She was given the middle name of Geraldine, even though her grandmother had been a patient in an Insane Asylum for around 5 years.  This naming gives a clue that Mabel still felt close enough to her mother to name a daughter after her.  
Mabel is buried in the White Church Cemetery in Merkel, Texas.  I have not been able to find a picture of her headstone.
  Mabel's husband John Morgan Buchanan, remarried in 1925. Thus providing a stepmother for Mildred who would have been 15.