This photograph is of my grandmother’s sister and my great aunt Helen Wilson Rowell. Wasn’t she a beautiful child? I am drawn to her pensive expression, curly hair and little boots. As the family historian, it’s one of many family photographs that I have inherited over the years. I am probably the only person alive who knows about great aunt Helen. She deserves to be remembered so I am sharing her with you.

Today we’ll use Helen’s birth and death certificates to glean information. Not only do they provide genealogical information such as dates and parent’s names, but often these records also contain interesting information that can provide some insight into our ancestors’ lives. This is what I am after – family history.

According to her birth certificate [1], Helen Wilson Rowell was born at 4 a.m. on 11 June 1917 at her parents’ home in Surry County, Virginia to my great grandparents William Richard & Lucie Baxter (Edwards) Rowell. That’s the genealogical information. If we look a little more closely, there is also family history information. For example, Helen was delivered at home by a midwife – no hospital in those days. Also, it’s noted that Helen was the fourth child born to my great-grandparents and that three children (including Helen) were living. Until I began working on this blog post, I had no idea that my great-grandparents had another child! Up until recently I knew William and Lucie Rowell’s children to be Edith Edwards Rowell, b. March 1912, Marian Berryman Rowell, b. April 1914 (my paternal grandmother), Helen Wilson Rowell, b. June 1917, and Bessie Virginia Rowell, b. 1919.

I have not been able to find any record of this other child. Not only is there no birth certificate, he or she is not listed in the family bible (I happen to have this Rowell family bible – see page below) and the child is not interred in the family plot at Oak Grove Methodist Church Cemetery in Surry County. Sadly, it’s likely this child was either stillborn or died very soon after birth and was not given a name. In the 19th and early 20th century, infant mortality was common enough that parents sometimes waited to name a child. I have seen many census records with unnamed young children between a month and two years.

William and Lucie would experience the pain of losing a child again when little Helen died at 5 p.m. on 4 July 1919 – just 23 days after her second birthday. Her death certificate [2] indicates that she died from chronic enterocolitis – an inflammation of the digestive tract affecting both the intestine and colon. The attending physician noted that she had suffered from the condition for one year and six months, which means it began when she was about six months old.

Helen probably experienced most, if not all, of the symptoms of chronic enterocolitis over her short life. These included abdominal pain, bloody stool, diarrhea, vomiting, fever, chills, labored breathing, fatigue and dehydration. Today, treatment would include antibiotics and/or antidiarrheal medicines – even surgery in extreme cases. Back then treatment would have been focused on alleviating symptoms until the disease ran its course. Helen probably was given some sort of pain reliver like opium, which was used to treat pain and diarrhea. Her mother Lucie would have been her primary caregiver and she would have used warm baths and/or compresses, bedrest and a focused diet to try and pacify Helen.

While this must have been a miserable experience for Helen, the impact on the entire family must have been substantial. Consider Lucie’s experience who, at 27, had already lost one child. In addition to taking care of Helen, Lucie had two daughters ages 7 and 5 to take care of as well. Lucie also did all of this while pregnant with daughter Bessie who would be born just three months after little Helen died. Just imagine how difficult, exhausting, scary and terribly sad that time must have been for all of them.

Helen Wilson Rowell was interred at Oak Grove Methodist Church in Surry County, Virginia where her family were members. Also interred at Oak Grove are my Rowell great grandparents, my Craig (Rowell) grandparents, and several other relatives. While her life was sad and cut tragically short, Helen Wilson Rowell is remembered.

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[1] Virginia, Birth Records, 1864-2014; Ancestry.com, 2015

[2] Virginia, Death Records, 1912-2014; Ancestry.com, 2015

• Surry County Connections