The Story

| Background | Chpt 1 - Childhood | Chpt 2 - The Transition Years |

Charlotte remained in quarantine for the next six months in the same hospital as her mother, but she was unable to visit her, and could only see her through a second story window. Her mother was to remain the next two-and-a-half years. Carole, who was six when her mother was first diagnosed, spent almost five years of her childhood only able to see her mother from behind a glass wall. In a sense, Carole, being the youngest, had seven mothers, but in another sense she had none. Three of her sisters had left while she was still a baby, and her mother was very sick and absent for much of her childhood. While she was very loved, her life was, and would to continue to be, removed from the others, despite anyone's best intentions or wishes.

When their mother was in the hospital, and later when Charlotte was quarantined and their parents sold the farm, the older sisters-who were now married and living in various places-were spending a great deal of time in Lexington. Cora, now married, had lived in Lexington throughout the ordeal, and kept a base for everyone. After their parents moved, all the sisters then considered Lexington home. Their support network and family unit strengthened and grew in an entirely new environment, now encompassing each of their own growing families, as well as the sisters who still lived with their parents in their new house.

One of the many things to grow out of this new family structure was the family gatherings on holidays and special occasions. During these occasions, many family traditions were celebrated-from "initiating" new members of the family, to the singing of traditional folk songs they have sung since childhood. The sisters would take their turns hosting the various holiday gatherings, Cora hosting the first away from the mountains at a Thanksgiving in 1950. (In later years their children would host their own, today numbering more than 50 family members strong.)

Charlotte and Carole attended high school and college in Lexington, where they both met their husbands. Carole moved to Florida soon after her marriage, where she lived for most of her adult life, and where she had three children. Unbeknownst to her sisters, Carole was in a very difficult marriage. After many difficult moments, she finally filed for divorce and called her sisters for help. All of the sisters pulled together to help her through. After such a long period of isolation, from having endured the remoteness of her mother's illness to the lonliness of being in an unhappy marriage, she had finally cleared up her life and reconnected with a support network of sisters who would do anything for her.

In 1993, however, Carole was diagnosed with terminal cancer. This event was the single most difficult the family had ever had to face; more devastating than the deaths of their father in 1969 and their mother in 1977. Carole had had to bear the brunt of some the most difficult traumas of their family, and being the youngest, she had always been such a focus of everyone's concern and care and love. As in her childhood, the family once again pulled together in their support for her and each other. Her death, just 3 1/2 months after her diagnosis, was a tremendous loss for the entire family.

Out of this loss, however, have come new beginnings. Carole's children had grown up in Florida away from the gatherings and family community. During this traumatic time they spent more time with the family and it's large support network than at any other time in their life. Last Thanksgiving, Lynn, Carole's oldest daughter, hosted her first family gathering, opening a new chapter to this family's history and demonstrating the strength of the family, it's ability to pull together and survive, and the hope of its future generations.