I, being unmarried, live in Cleveland, Ohio with my brother who is also unmarried, My father died at the age of 82 of infirmities of age and my mother at age 72 following an operation for hernia.
They had five children, one a male who died at 48 of hemorrhages of the stomach after he had been rescued from death by drowning. Four are still living, one male and three females, among them the subject of this sketch. None were ever afflicted with nerve troubles.
I had a siege of typhoid fever when about 17 years of age but otherwise enjoyed good health until the time of the illness now in question. The fact that I never even consulted a physician from the time of recovery from typhoid fever until the seizure about to be described is emphasized.
On the evening of the 10th of March, 1906, I left my home on an errand. It was between eight and nine o'clock, the night was dark, but snow lay on the ground. While proceeding calmly along a street, otherwise deserted, I suddenly was startled at perceiving the dark form of a man about ten feet away and in front of me. Frightened, I stood as frozen to the spot, and recalls that for support she grasped a near-by fence.
The figure was garbed in a long coat, and wore a slouched hat turned brim down so that she recognized no features. It seemed to float in the air and no feet were visible. It waned, vanished and reappeared a number of times. I recognized it as an apparition of my deceased brother, then dead about a year, being led to the recognition by the familiar shape of the hat. Intuitively I knew that he wished to convey a message to me, from the tales told by my mother she was aware that a spirit cannot communicate with mortals unless addressed by the letter, but my tongue clove to my palate and I could utter no sound. How long I stood there I do not know, but eventually, unnerved and unstrung, I found myself at home relating my harrowing experience to my brother.
About a week afterwards, my deceased brother appeared to me in a dream and said to me, "I wanted you to adopt that little girl, but it is alright now."
Between the time of the apparition on the street, and the dream, the widow of this brother had died, leaving an only child, a girl. After the dream, bent upon taking the child, I hastened to the house of mourning, but upon arrival found that some other relative, an aunt, had taken the child to her home, and there she is still.
I now felt herself ailing, and consulted a physician in Cleveland, Ohio. He told me that I must have passed through a severe fright, that in consequence the valve of my heart had shrunken. His prognosis was that I am incurably afflicted and can live only three weeks further. To my anxious inquiry whether an operation could heolp0, he declared that it would be of no avail. Giving me a few powders, he advised me to abstain from meats and beer, and told me I need not come again to him. Notwithstanding, I did go back one or twice again, but he, however, repeated each time that he could do nothing for me and I must not come again.
I thereupon remained at home, but consulted no other practitioner. I suffered no pain, but felt a constant sensation as of internal trickling of blood from her heart downward near the outer margin of the left breast. I experienced no dyspnoea nor had I the evidence of oedma. Inert and listless, I went into a decline, growing more and more emaciated, weaker and weaker as time sped by. I remained in this condition of progressive deterioration for about a year and a half. About the beginning of October, 1907, she presented herself again to the doctor. He upbraided her for coming, declaring that I was liable to drop dead on the street, told me to say at home, for he could no nothing for me. At or about this time in the Catholic Universe of Cleveland, Ohio, I read about the shrine in Carey. At once I was filled with hopefulness and determined to go to Carey the very next day. This being about a week after my latest call upon the doctor.
On Saturday, October 19, 1907, I left Cleveland in company with my brother and reached Carey during the afternoon. On the train I felt very weak, and after our arrival at Carey, I and my brother once proceeded to the church and prayed at the Shrine. Upon entering the church I felt a sensation of relief, and there stole upon my consciousness a conviction that I would get well.
The anxiety and worry that I had so long occupied my mind, dissipated at once and I lost the distressful feeling of leakage in my chest. That night I slept well, the first time in many months.
The Devotion of the forty hours began on the next morning and I took part in the church exercise throughout the following days, feeling comforted and buoyant in increasing measure.
On Wednesday morning the image of the Mother of Consolation was taken down from its niche and by the chosen girls, was placed for my convenience at the sanctuary railing. Kneeling, I prayed before it and kissed it, feeling no unusual sensation beyond an internal assurance that I am now cured.
On the evening of the same day, October 23, I departed for Cleveland. My brother had previously returned to Cleveland on Sunday, but filled with anxiety and apprehensiveness on account of my condition as he had know it, and not aware of my cure, he had left Cleveland the same afternoon for Carey. Arriving at Carey, he was dumbfounded at the news that I had left for Cleveland alone and cured, and hardly trusting his ears, he rushed back to Cleveland on the next train. There he found me and was filled with amazement at beholding my so greatly changed appearance. From a whimpering invalid, I had turned into a self-contained, smiling, happy woman.
On the next day, I called up the doctor. He examined me and told me I was cured. Since then, with the exception of an attack of congestion of the lungs experienced during the winter, I have been healthy. I am and have been free from nervousness or nervous fears and reads. I am still doing housework.
MN:OH