What Did Our Ancestors Die Of?

 

Frank and Mary Raney, June 1960: their 50th wedding anniversary

 Death certificates were instituted early in the 20th century, filled out by the attending physician. I'm sharing my curiosity on the cause-of-deaths of our direct ancestors and their siblings. Are any causes hereditary? You be the judge.

Cousin Kathleen Raney Sullivan provided me with a copy of grandfather Frank Whitman Raney's death certificate. I was living back east when he died in October 1969, and recalled Mom saying it was liver failure. At age 82 he began itching all over, put himself in the hospital and never came out. But it wasn't liver failure. It was pyelonephritis with uremia - a serious kidney infection. To make matters worse, after his death an autopsy was performed, which revealed he had only one working kidney. What initially put him in the hospital was dermatitis herpetiformis which, according to Wikipedia is caused by excess consumption of gluten. He also had general arterioclerosia.

Frank Whitman Raney's death certificate

Mary Raney on her brother Gusta Smith's and sister Laura Smith's farm in Addie, Washington

We know that Grandma Mary Smith Raney was 97 when she died in May 1979 . Her lungs filled with fluid as I recall. The death certificate says she died of heart failure. She was a tough woman and we should all hope to live so long.

Mary Smith Raney's death certificate

 Grandma's brother Gusta Smith died in 1965 at 89. He'd had dementia for a number of years.

Grandma's sister Laura Smith died in 1955 at age 67 of a stroke. It was an instant death.

James Samuel Raney, Laura Esther Raney and Nancy Ann Dyson Raney.

Our great-grandfather, James Samuel Raney, died in 1954 at Deaconess Hospital in Spokane a few days after surgery (not certain for what) of "hemorrhage and irreversible shock" with an underlying "diabetic coma." He was 86. 

His wife, our great-grandmother, Nancy Ann Dyson Raney, died in 1938 in Indiana at age 71 of "hemipligia in left side" after a duration of 8 days. Hemipligia is a total or partial paralysis of one side of the body resulting from disease of or injury to the motor centers of the brain. I assume she had a stroke.

Their daughter and Grandpa's sister, Laura Esther Raney Straw, died in 1954 at age 51 of a "ruptured aneurysm in the circle of Willis" [a complete ring of arteries at the base of the brain that is formed by the cerebral and communicating arteries and is a site of aneurysms]. She lived 10 minutes after onset.
 

[Scroll over] Other than Whitman Hill Dyson far left and James and Nancy Ann Dyson Raney holding Laura Esther, I have no idea which are Dyson siblings and which spouses. 1902

Here are a few of our great-grandmother, Nancy Ann Dyson's Indiana siblings. Magaret Ellen Dyson Butler (1861-1944): 10 years of "pulmonary tuberculosis," but it was the "influenza followed by 10 days of bronchial pneumonia" that did her in  Lou Ann Dyson Leach (1866-1943): 17 years of arthritis; 10 days of "bowel impaction" that caused [indecipherable word], so her death remains a mystery. Sarah Dyson Bass (1865-1940): "Sarcoma of liver" [cancer]. Duration: long. Our great-grandmother's half-brothers are next. Willard Dyson (1879-1936): "Coronary thrombosis"; Leonard Dyson (1900-1977): "Heart disease" for 5 years followed by "acute pulmonary edema" for 12 hours; John Whitman Dyson (1897-1971); "Acute pancreatitis; renal cyst right kidney;" Joseph Alva Dyson (1891-1970): 10 years of "generalized arteriosclerosis," followed by 2 days of "cerebral thrombosis" [stroke]. Their father, our great-great grandfather, Whitman Hill Dyson, having married three times, died in 1914 at age about 80, but we don't know the cause of death, most likely because he died at home.

Gusta, Laura, Louisa Petitjohn Smith and Eugene Smith

Our grandmother Mary Smith's father, Eugene Smith, died at age 79 in 1928 in Spokane, but I don't know what he died of and can't retrieve online the actual death certificate. He was always sickly and suffered from migraines. Her mother, Louisa Pettijohn Smith (1849-1931) died at her home in what is now the Spokane Valley from cancer. She suffered a lingering death with only the occasional spoonful of laudanum to fleetingly suppress the pain. The unlicensed French immigrant doctor said it was cancer of the spleen (Mom snorted in derision when she told me this bit), but my guess is that it was some other internal cancer. If it had been breast cancer, I think there would have been some sign of it. Another death certificate I'm unable to retrieve online. 

 

Regarding our great-grandmother Louisa Pettijohn Smith's siblings: Charles Francis Pettijohn (1844-1921): The newspaper obituary states he died of nephritis [kidney disease] at age 77 in Kansas.  As for her other brothers, Jean Claude Petitjean (1847-1928) (who kept the original spelling of their surname) died at age 81 in Ohio; Jules Pettijohn (1856-1951) died at age 95 at his home in Kansas in 1951.

Indiana makes death certificates available online, so here are some collateral relatives who died in the 20th century. Elizabeth Rainey Heath (1850-1924), sister to our great-great grandfather Everett Rainey, died of "cardiovascular nephritic" syndrome [kidney disease].  Another sister, Serena Rainey Mason (1847-1923) died of "influenza" with am underlying cause of "infirmity of old age." She was 76. 

Their sister, Cordelia Ann Rainey Barrett (1842-after 1920), died at the poor farm at age 78 or older, so no telling the cause. Everett's brother, Absolom Rainey (1833-1907) died of "cerebro meningitis" with an underlying cause of "chronic nephritis." As for our great-great grandfather Everett Rainey (1844-1899), the measles and other viruses and infections he contracted during the Civil War affected him for the rest of his life; he grew so weak he was unable to farm and died an invalid at age 56, exact cause unknown. Everett's first wife, our great-great grandmother Nancy Jane Dougan Rainey, died in a house fire in the 1870s.  Her brother Peter Dougan (1845-1922) died of "mitral [valve] regurgitation"[blood leaking back into the heart] with an underlying cause of "chronic parenchymatous nephritis."

Peter Dougan

It appears there was a lot of kidney disease in the family at end of life.  A number of ancestors and their siblings died in youth and middle age before death certificates were issued . Was there cancer down the family lines that claimed some of them? We'll never know.  You may have found this blog dismal, but I feel that knowledge makes us wiser . . . for what it's worth.