Mental Illness in the Family, Part 3

Unfortunately, the Library of Virginia reports that no records among the Southwest Virginia Mental Health Institute files can be found for my grandfather’s brother, Dan C. Troutman.[1] At least, SVMHI still has his admission and release records. He was first admitted 12 January 1929 and released 30 June 1930, reportedly “improved.” He was second admitted 6 July 1934 and died there almost fourteen years later on 2 July 1948, cause of death “Chronic Myocardial Degeneration.”[2] He was 65.

His illness never went into remission, his foster daughter Lois said. She lamented that the only treatment available for mental health patients at the time of Dan’s illness was phenobarbital, a sedative.[3] However, other treatments were being administered. One was hydrotherapy:

“Hydrotherapy was a popular method of treatment for mental illness at the beginning of the twentieth century, and was used at many institutions. . . . Water was thought to be an effective treatment because it could be heated or cooled to different temperatures, which, when applied to the skin, could produce various reactions throughout the rest of the body. One of the main benefits of hydrotherapy treatment was its ability to take effect quickly. Hydrotherapy could be accomplished with baths, packs, or sprays. . . . A patient could expect a continuous bath treatment to last from several hours to several days, or sometimes even over night. Continuous baths were the most effective when held in a quiet room with little light and audio stimulation, thus allowing the patient to relax and possibly even fall asleep. Bath temperatures typically ranged from 92°F to 97°F, so as not to cause injury to the patients. Packs consisted of sheets dipped in varying temperatures of water, which were then wrapped around the patient for several hours depending on the case. Sprays functioned like showers, and used either warm or cold water. Cold water was used to treat patients diagnosed with manic-depressive psychoses, [italics mine] and those showing signs of ‘[e]xcitement and increased motor activity.’ Application of cold water slowed down blood flow to the brain, decreasing mental and physical activity. The temperature for a cold pack ranged between 48°F and 70°F.”[4]

Was Dan treated with cold water packs? It seems likely since they were used at SVHMI, at the time he was there.

“In 1939, wet sheet packs were thought to be a more effective and humane treatment for the acutely disturbed than the previous practice of administering large quantities of narcotic drugs. Several attendants were trained in the application of the wet sheet pack and this treatment was used daily.”[5]

Unfortunately, SVMHI was understaffed in the late 1930s, and nurses lacked training in psychology and mental health treatments. Attendants were required to have two years of high school, to pass a physical exam, to be under age 40, and to undergo a probationary period of three months. Some were taught how to apply the wet pack treatments and a few were taught a Red Cross course in first aid. “They were encouraged to read certain text books on psychiatric nursing and some were given several weeks’ training on the insulin treatment ward. The attendant to patient ratio at the time [1939] was 1 to 15, which barely permitted more than custodial care.”[6] This gives me concern for Uncle Dan. Fortunately, the staff numbers increased over the years he lived there.

Another treatment commonly used at this time was metrazol convulsive therapy.[7] Patients were injected with metrazol, a powerful stimulant that caused convulsions and coma.[8] This treatment fell into disuse because severe convulsions too often resulted in fractured bones, and patients greatly feared the treatment[9]; it was discontinued at SVMHI in 1940.[10] Another treatment was insulin shock therapy.[11] This type of therapy involved large doses of insulin to keep patients in a coma. Electric shock was combined with both therapies, thus they were known as shock therapies.[12]

These controversial electroshock therapies reached a peak of popular use during WWII.[13]

These treatments seem the most likely candidates to have been applied to Dan Troutman. Fortunately, patients who were able were still being employed on the farm. I would like to think of Uncle Dan  outside and working in the fresh air more so than comatose from shock treatment. Perhaps, he even had opportunities to sing and play his guitar.

---

[1] Karen Arnold, Health Information Technician, Southwestern Virginia Mental Health Institute, Marion, Virginia, to Zola Noble, 22 October 2015, letter, informs that records for Dan C. Troutman cannot be located among SVMHI records at the Library of Virginia; Dan Troutman foler, hanging files; privately held, [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE] Anderson, Indiana.

[2] Arnold, Karen, Health Info. Tech., SVMHI, Marion, Va., to Zola Noble, letter, 23 Sept. 2015, includes info. from the Admission Register of SWVMHI; Dan Troutman folder, hanging files; privately held, [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE] Anderson, Indiana.

[3] Lois Faris, Glade Spring, Virginia, to Zola Noble, 15 August 2008, letter, information on life as a foster daughter in the Dan C. Troutman home; Lois Faris file, Troutman family; privately held, [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE] Anderson, Indiana. Also, Treatment of the Mentally Ill > 20th Century > Treatment Therapies, 7th bullet point (http://mentalillness.umwblogs.org/20th-century/treatment-therapies/ : accessed 30 October 2015).

[4] Restoring Perspective: Life and Treatment at the London Asylum > Medical Treatments > Hydrotherapy (http://www.lib.uwo.ca/archives/virtualexhibits/londonasylum/

hydrotherapy.html : accessed 29 October 2015).

[5] A Brief History of Southwestern Virginia Mental Health Institute, compiled by Phyllis Miller, (Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services, Richmond, Virginia, 2012.), p. 15; (http://www.swvmhi.dbhds.virginia.gov/swvmhi/about-us/brief-history-of-swvmhi.pdf : accessed 29 October 2015).

[6] Ibid.

[7] Ibid.

[8]  “What is Metrazol Shock Treatment?” Psychology Dictionary (http://psychologydictionary.org/metrazol-shock-treatment/ : accessed 29 October 2015). 
[9] Leopold N. Judah and Oddist D. Murphree, “Metrazol Convulsive Therapy Modified by Succinylcholine,” The Journal of Mental and Nervous Disease, Aug. 1959, Vol. 129, Issue 2, p. 198 (http://journals.lww.com/jonmd/Citation/1959/08000/Metrazol_Convulsive_Therapy_Modified_By.11.aspx : accessed 29 October 2015).

[10] A Brief History of Southwestern Virginia Mental Health Institute, compiled by Phyllis Miller, (Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services, Richmond, Virginia, 2012.), p. 16.

[11] Ibid., p. 15.

[12] “Insulin Shock Therapy,” Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/

Insulin_shock_therapy : accessed 29 October 2015).
[13] Treatment of the Mentally Ill > 20th Century > Treatment Therapies, 7th bullet point (http://mentalillness.umwblogs.org/20th-century/treatment-therapies/ : accessed 30 October 2015).

My Quilt Making Great-Grandmother

While I wait for records of my grand-uncle Dan Troutman to arrive from the Southwestern Virginia Mental Health Institute, I'll write a few lines about his mother America Pratt Troutman.

The two most prominent traits of hers that I heard growing up were her hot temper and her pipe-smoking. But she was more that that. She was the wife of a Confederate veteran who may have suffered throughout his life from the trauma of battle, of seeing his brother shot and killed, of a wound that took months to heal, of six months imprisonment in an over-crowded, hell-hole of a Yankee prison. She was a mother of ten children, five of whom died before she did. She was a caregiver of sick neighbors. She sat by their bedsides, washed and fed them, nursed them back to health or watched them take their last breath.[1]  One woman she cared for had her light her pipe; thus America developed a taste for tobacco and the habit of pipe smoking, she said.

Merky, as she was called, lived her last decade after her husband died mostly in Smyth County Virginia where she had lived all her life, but she spent a year in Nebraska with her son Clint's family. The story goes that Clint went to Virginia on a train and brought her back with him. She was quiet, the children recalled, often sitting in a chair reading her Bible and smoking her pipe when they came home from school. The year must have been about 1925 or '26. My dad remembered that he and his siblings were a little embarrassed about their grandmother's pipe-smoking. Once when they went to town, Merky's son Clint would not let her take the pipe with her. Then when Clint was smoking his cigarette, his mother asked for a drag. "It tastes good," she said.

America Troutman in Nebraska with three of her grandchildren: James, Virginia, and Neville, children of Clint Troutman. c. 1926. Photo from the Troutman family scrapbook in the possession of a cousin in Nebraska.

After her trip to Nebraska, she lived at Glade Spring with her son Dan and his family.  When she died, 14 January 1929,[2] she left a will naming Dan as her sole heir “for his kind care and attention to me.” She said she had already “given the others all I can give."[3]

Merky and a neighbor child at the Glade Spring home of Dan and Carrie Troutman, c. 1928.

But there's more to this feisty, pipe-smoking great-grandmother. She also made fabulous quilts. To my good fortune, I have one, the only one in existence, as far as I know. It’s a crazy quilt.

I received the quilt via my father’s cousin, Lois Faris, the foster daughter of my grandfather’s brother, Dan Troutman. Growing up, Lois was known as Lois Troutman. When she became an adult, she reconnected with her birth family and began using her birth name, Bethel. Then she married Gale L. Faris.

Though she dearly loved the Troutman family who raised her, she recognized that the blood ties were not there. That’s one reason she gave the quilt to me. The other reason was my interest in quilt making. At the time she brought it to me, about 1980, I owned a quilt shop in Chilhowie, Virginia, called The Quilt Corner. I made quilts and gave lessons on quilt-making and other types of needlework, a life-long passion all mine. One day, Lois walked into my shop carrying a folded quilt. Unfolding it on my worktable, she said, “This was made by your great-grandmother, and I want you to have it.” I'm sure I gasped! Based on my work in the shop, she thought I would appreciate it. What an understatement! I felt stunned, thrilled, awed, and humbled—all at the same time.

As I looked at this quilt, my great-grandmother’s creative nature spoke to me. Using wool and other fabrics, probably cut from suits and dresses, some dark and some bright, the maker’s practical side prevailed, but it was also a quilt of impeccable detail and artful whimsy. Perhaps, the contrast of dark and bright fabrics also revealed her moods. Perhaps, the irregular shapes echoed the mountains and valleys of her home.

Close-up sections of America Troutman's crazy quilt, c. 1900.

Many of the pieces were torn or threadbare, but it was the stitches that caught my breath. Intricate webbing connected each piece with threads in subtle colors of the sand in a mountain stream, the pink of a baby’s skin and the blue of a heron. Chain stitches formed circles interwoven like the Olympic games symbol, four on one patch and five on another. A row of six linked circles joined a triangle of brick-red wool with a tiny navy stripe to a tan and brown striped shape; some stripes in the fabrics were set at right angles to each other. Two chain stitch hearts intertwined on a navy background; a chain stitch formed the base for a wreath of daisy-like flowers on red; chain stitches formed the stem of a figure that looked like a lollypop. There were chevron stitches that looked like a split rail fence, fishbone stitches arranged like a row of tiny pine trees; feather stitches and fly stitches; blanket stitches that flipped direction every fifth stitch with star stitches inserted in the spaces; herringbone stitches and flat stitches. More star stitches were splashed here and there, one in the center of a patch. Some stitches, I could not find in my catalog of embroidery stitches. 

America Pratt Troutman's great-great-great-granddaughter studies the crazy quilt, 2013.

The quilt reminds me that our personalities are many faceted. Spunky America refuses to be labeled one way or another without all things considered.

---

[1] Faris, Lois, Glade Spring, Virginia. Interview by Zola Troutman Noble. Notes. Privately held by Z. T. Noble, [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE] Anderson, Indiana. 29 April 2010.
[2] Virginia, Death Records, 1912-2014, database Ancestry.cm (http://ancestry.com : accessed 20 Oct. 2015), America Ann Troutman, 1929.
[3]  Washington County, Virginia, Wills and Inventories, Book 33, p. 458, America Troutman; County Clerk’s office, Abingdon.

Mental Illness in the Family, Part 2

When my paternal grandfather’s brother Dan Troutman’s symptoms of mental illness started, I do not know. I thought it started after his mother died, as stated in the last posting on this subject, but I’ve learned that it was earlier. He was first hospitalized on 12 January 1929 just two days before his mother died. A year and a half later on 30 June 1930, his condition had improved enough that he was released.[1]

Located about thirty miles from Dan’s Glade Spring home, the place of his confinement was a long established and reputable treatment facility for the mentally ill, Southwestern State Hospital, now called Southwestern Virginia Mental Health Institute, in Marion, Virginia. He was diagnosed with manic-depressive psychoses, now called bipolar disorder; his symptoms included “severe and recurrent depression or mania with abrupt or gradual onsets and recoveries . . . . [recurring] cyclically.” Psychiatrists said it was inherited.[2]

Early 20th century postcard photo of Southwestern State Hospital.

Did Dan’s mother also suffer from bipolar disorder? Her foster granddaughter Lois thinks so. The family stories about my paternal great-grandmother, America Ann Pratt Troutman, described her as a high-strung woman with a volatile temper. Her son Clint told stories about her tirades, told of hearing his father say during his wife’s fits of anger, “If only I’d never crossed those mountains.” Lois also witnessed such behavior from her grandmother; America closed herself in her room for periods up to a week at a time, Lois said.[3] America’s symptoms must not have been as severe as Dan’s, however; she was never hospitalized.

Opening in Marion in 1887, the Southwest Virginia Lunatic Asylum, as it was then called, was considered state of the art: modern, convenient, and economical. The central building contained six patient wards (three for men and three for women) a kitchen, a bakery, two dining rooms (separate for men and women), a laundry, a sewing room, an elevator, and rooms for patients and attendants, and it was fully wired with electricity.[4] 

From its inception, the hospital included a complete working farm where many of the patients planted, tended, and harvested cash crops; in addition, they tended pigs, horses, cattle, and chickens. The grounds also included a shoe shop, broom and mattress shop, and upholstery shop. Patients well enough and willing were employed in all of these endeavors. The hospital was a self-sustaining “community within a community.”[5] The aim was “to keep the patients interested and the work pleasant.”[6] Plans for additional wings to house more patients soon materialized. In 1902 the name of the hospital was changed to Southwestern State Hospital.[7] 

The description of the place sounds idyllic. Dan would likely have enjoyed the farm work when he was able.

Henderson Building on SWVMHI campus, in recent years. Photo by Skye Marthaler, used by permission.

From 1887 when the facility opened to 1929 when Dan was first admitted, many changes occurred to the physical appearance of the campus. Outdated buildings were torn down and new and improved buildings were added. More acreage was purchased which increased the capacity for farming. World War I brought a rise in cost of goods and a shortage of personnel. If not for the farm and gardens, it would have been impossible to feed everyone.[8]

Many changes occurred in the treatment of mental illness during those years, as well. I’ll save that for next time.

---

[1] Arnold, Karen, Health Information Technician, Marion, Virginia, to Zola Noble, letter, 25 September 2015, includes information from the Admission Register of SWVMHI; Dan Troutman folder, hanging files; privately held, [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE] Anderson, Indiana.

[2] Manic-depressive psychoses, “Glossary,” Restoring Perspective: Life and Treatment at the London Asylum (http://www.lib.uwo.ca/archives/virtualexhibits/londonasylum/

glossary.html#manic : accessed 30 September 2015).

[3] Faris, Lois, Glade Spring, Virginia. Interview by Zola Troutman Noble. Notes. Privately held by Z. T. Noble, [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE] Anderson, Indiana. 29 April 2010. Lois was a foster daughter of Dan and Carrie Troutman. She lived with them from age 18 months until she left for college.

[4] A Brief History of Southwestern Virginia Mental Health Institute, compiled by Phyllis Miller, (Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services, Richmond, Virginia, 2012.), p. 4.

[5] Ibid., p. 5.

[6] Ibid., p. 6.

[7] Ibid., p. 5.

[8] Ibid., p. 10.

© 2015, Z. T. Noble

Mental Illness in the Family, Part I

Too often hushed, mental illness takes its toll on families. Ours was one. My grandfather’s brother, Daniel Clark Troutman, suffered from mental illness. At about age 48, he started “periods of manic rage” such as his mother had exhibited, though more severe than hers.[1] He spent most of the last thirteen years of his life in a mental institution.[2] That’s probably part of the reason my father never talked about him; maybe Dad never even met him. By 1936 when Dad first came to Virginia, his Uncle Dan was hospitalized.[3]

The early and middle years of Dan’s life seem to have been pleasant enough. On 27 September 1882, Dan’s birth expanded the Daniel A. and America (Pratt) Troutman household to four living children.[4] After the losses of Clifton, and Mary Ellen, in 1879 and Bessie in 1880, the arrival of additional children may have been a comfort. Dan’s three living siblings were Laura Estelle “Stelle,” age 12, and John W. “Bud,” age ten, and James or “Jim,” age two. Dan grew to be the tallest of the 

Troutman brothers, though his exact height is uncertain; he had dark brown hair and blue eyes.[5] Like most of the Troutman children, he probably never finished high school.[6]

Dan C. Troutman at about age 20.

Like his father and brothers, Dan became a farmer.[7] At the age of 24, he married Carrie Cosby Sexton, 2 September 1906. Carrie, born 19 July 1880 was a daughter of Thomas Sexton and Fannie (Cosby) Sexton.[8]  

Carrie was captivated by handsome Dan who loved to sing and play a banjo. His musical abilities included directing the choir at the Presbyterian Church where they later lived in Glade Spring.[9] A baby daughter was born to Carrie and Dan on 27 September 1907, a little more than a year after their marriage. They named her Warrington Catlett,[10] a strange name for a small girl. She was their only known birth child.  

Dan and Carrie Troutman and daughter Warrington, c. 1918.

 

The marriage may have had its challenges, for in 1910, Dan and Carrie seem to have been living apart. Both are recorded in the census in the homes of their respective parents.[11] Or perhaps the day the census taker rode by on his horse, Dan just happened to be home helping his aging father with his farm work, and Carrie had taken Warrington to visit the baby's maternal grandparents. 

By 1920,[12] Dan and Carrie had bought a place at Glade Spring, where they also lived in 1930. [13]

Dan C. Troutman home, Glade Spring, VA, c. 1925.

Meanwhile, Warrington wanted a sister. She had been begging her parents for a baby sister, which they could not provide, so they decided to adopt. During a visit to a nearby orphanage, they fell in love with an eighteen-month-old blonde, blue-eyed little charmer named Lois Marie Bethel whose parents, Walter and Elsie Bethel, had both died within a year of her birth.[14] Despite having several older siblings and aunts and uncles, Lois and her brother and sister were placed in an orphanage and taken into separate foster homes.[15] Lois was all that Warrington, Carrie, and Daniel wanted. They doted on her.

Dan C. Troutman family: Warrington, Carrie, Dan, and Lois, c. 1928.

Dan C. Troutman and daughters, Warrington and Lois, c. 1932.

Although Lois' maternal aunts objected to her being fully adopted, Lois felt loved and cherished by the Troutmans as much as any biological child.[16] She also learned to love her Grandma “Merkie,” Dan’s mother America, who lived in his home during her last years. Shortly after his mother’s death in 1929,[17]Dan started shutting himself into his room for weeks at time.

Dan C. Troutman on his front porch, Glade Spring, Va., c. 1932.

---

[1] Lois Faris, Glade Spring, Virginia, to Zola Noble, 15 August 2008, letter, information on life as a foster daughter in the Dan C. Troutman home; Lois Faris file, Troutman family; privately held, [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE] Anderson, Indiana.

[2]1940 U. S. census, Marion, Smyth County, Virginia, population schedule, Southwest Virginia Hospital (Insane), enumeration district 87-4, sheet 12A, visit no. 904, Sam [Dan] C. Trautman; digital image Ancestry.com (http://ancestry.com ; accessed 9 September 2015); NARA microfilm publication T-627, roll 4295. Census states that this was also his place of residence in 1935; his death certificate states that he died in the state hospital in 1948; therefore, he was there for thirteen years, at least. Virginia, Death Records, 1912-2013, digital image Ancestry.com (http://ancestry.com ; accessed 9 September 2015).

[3] 1940 U. S. census, Marion, Smyth Co., Va., Southwest Virginia Hospital (Insane), pop. sch., ED 87-4, sheet 12-A, no. 904, Sam C. Trautman [Dan C. Troutman]. Census notes that he lived in the “same house” in 1935.

[4] “U. S. World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918,” images Ancestry.com (http://www. Ancestry.com : accessed 9 September 2015), card for Daniel Clark Troutman, serial number 3142, Local Draft Board, Washington County, Virginia.

[5] Ibid. This draft card states that Dan is “Tall”; draft cards for his brothers, Clint, Lee Roy, and James, state either medium height (Clint and Lee Roy) or short (James). The oldest brother John W. Troutman never lived long enough to have his height recorded on a draft card, so it is unknown.

[6] His level of education recorded in the 1940 census cited above, instead of a number for grades completed, states “fair”; the meaning of that is unclear.

[7] For occupation, see 1940 U. S. census, Marion, Smyth Co., Va., pop. sched., Southwest Virginia Hospital (Insane), ED 87-4, sheet 12A, no. 904, Sam [Dan] C. Trautman. Also, 1920 U. S. census, Glade Spring, Washington Co., Va., population schedule, enumeration district (ED) 147, p. 5-A, dwelling 106, family 106, Daniel C. Troutman; digital image Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 9 September 2015); NARA mic. pub. T625, roll 1917.

[8] Smyth County, Virginia, Register of Marriage, Book 1: 132, Daniel C. Troutman and Carrie A. Sexton, 1906; County Clerk’s Office, Marion. This record also states Dan’s occupation as farmer.

[9] Lois Faris, Glade Spring, Va., to Zola Noble, 15 August 2008, letter.

[10] Virginia, Birth Certificates, 1864-2014, Warrington Catlett Troutman, digital image Ancestry.com (http://ancestry.com ; accessed 9 September 2015).

[11] For Dan: 1910 U. S. census, Ellendale precinct, Smyth County, Virginia, population schedule, enumeration district [ED] 89, p. 1-B, dwelling 14, family 14, Daniel Troutman family, see Daniel Jr.; digital image Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 9 September 2015); NARA microfilm publication T624, roll 1649. For Carrie: 1910 U. S. census, Chatham Hill precinct, Smyth County, Virginia, population schedule, enumeration district [ED] 90, p. 10-B, dwelling 178, family 178, Fannie C. Sexton family, see Carry Troutman, digital image Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 9 September 2015); NARA microfilm publication T624, roll 1649.

[12] 1920 U. S. census, Glade Spring, Washington Co., Va., pop. sched., ED 147, p. 5-A, dwell. 106, fam. 106, Daniel C. Troutman.

[13] 1930 U. S. census, Washington County, Virginia, population schedule, Glade Spring district, enumeration district [ED] 96-4, sheet 5-B, dwelling 107, family 112, Daniel C. Troutman; digital image Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 9 September 2015); NARA microfilm publication T626, roll 2463.

[14] Lois Faris, Glade Spring, Virginia, to Zola Noble, 15 August 2008, letter.

[15] Ibid.

[16] Ibid. 
[17] Virginia, Death Records, 1912-2013, America Ann Troutman, digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 18 September 2015).

© 2015, Z. T. Noble

 

D. A. Troutman's Final Years, 1910-1918 (and one more).

A few blog posts ago, I left my paternal great-grandparents Daniel Absolum and America Ann (Pratt) Troutman in 1910 and wandered off on tangents with a couple of their children. Their firstborn son, John William “Bub” Troutman had died that year at age 37 leaving a pregnant widow and five children. What happened to Bud’s widow, Jennie, involved another son, James Henry “Jim” Troutman. And of course I had to write about Jim’s life.

No doubt, Daniel and America grieved over the sudden loss of their son Bud, who had come home from work on a Thursday, feeling well, ate a good meal his wife Jennie had prepared, and laughed with his children. About 11:00 p.m., he began to feel ill. During the next five days, the best efforts of the doctor and Bud’s wife came to no avail, and Bud succumbed to pneumonia on Tuesday, 20 December 1910.[1]

No doubt, they were none too happy about their son Jim’s affair with Jennie and his attempted cover up.

As the drama in the lives of their busy adult children was unfolding, life went on in Daniel and America’s little home tucked away down a long, narrow, dirt lane winding through the valley and up the mountain. Daniel continued farming as much has his age would allow and with the aid of his son Roy. America continued housekeeping, quilt making, and caring for ailing neighbors. Soon she would be caring for her own son, Roy.

Daniel A. Troutman and his horse, c. 1910.

No doubt, during the next few years of the decade between 1910 and 1920, Daniel and America helped Jennie and her children as best they could. During that time, their granddaughter, Glenna, Bud’s nine-year-old daughter, was suddenly stricken with spinal meningitis and died on 21 April 1915.[2]

Three years later, on 21 March 1918, Daniel succumbed to apparent heart failure at the age of 82 at his home.[3] His obituary called him “one of Smyth Counties oldest and most respected citizens,” and noted his service “in defense of the Southland.” Both the pastor of the Methodist Church, of which he was a member, and the pastor of the Rich Valley Presbyterian Church preached his funeral.[4]

According to John Orr, current owner of the former Troutman property, his mother remembered D. A. Troutman’s death. She was a little girl, and she recalled going to the wake with her parents. In her limited experience, she had seen dead horses being dragged to a burying place, so she told a friend she had come to see “Old Man Troutman dragged to the cemetery.”[5] Apparently, she had not had much experience with human deaths.

Portrait of Daniel Absolum Troutman, c. 1905.

Daniel Troutman's funeral card.

Daniel’s granddaughter, Neville Troutman, who was about eight years old at the time of her grandfather’s death, remembered taking the news to her father Clint, who was working in the field on their farm in Nebraska. “It was the first time I saw my father cry,” she said.[6]

The next year, on 18 October, Daniel and America’s youngest son, Lee Roy, a slender, handsome young man with grey eyes and black hair,[7] succumbed to consumption at age 28.[8] Until his illness, Roy had been farming with his father and his brother Jim.[9] He had been ill for at least two and a half years.[10] On 1 September 1918, Roy had been accepted into the Presbyterian Church in absentia, as “his infirmities preclude his attendance upon the services of the sanctuary.” The pastor had gone to the Troutman home and baptized Roy there.[11]

Lee Roy Troutman's WWI draft registration card, side 1.

Lee Roy Troutman's WWI draft registration card, side 2.

Lee Roy Troutman, c. 1905.

Great-grandmother, America, faced the next decade with five living children out of ten she had birthed. Estelle, Clint, and Daisy and their families had moved to Nebraska. Only Jim and Dan still lived in Virginia. [12]  She chose to live her final years with Dan.

---

[1] Smyth-Bland Regional Library, digital collections (http://www.sbrl.org/ : accessed 26 August 2015); Smyth-Bland Regional Library > S-B Digital Collections > Newspapers > Smyth County Newspapers > Search term: Troutman; Marion News, 20 Jan. 1911, p. 1, col. 5, “In Memoriam, William H. Troutman.” Note that the name as published is incorrect; it should be John William Troutman. Although no other family members are named in the obituary, other details identify this as the obituary of John William Troutman: nickname “Bud,” survived by wife and five children, location of home, date of death, etc.

[2] Virginia Death Records, 1912-2014, database, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 25 August 2015), entry for Glenna Virginia Troutman, 21 April 1915.

[3] Rich Valley Presbyterian Church Cemetery (Smyth County, Virginia); Daniel A. Troutman, marker; photographed August 2004 by the researcher.

[4] “Obituary,” clipped from an unknown Wayne County, Nebraska newspaper, which quotes an obituary from an unknown Smyth County, Virginia newspaper. Handwritten copy made by Mary Troutman, daughter-in-law of the deceased, which is in the author’s possession.

[5] Conversation between John Orr and the author at his home, Rich Valley, Virginia, 6 April 2014.

[6] Letter from Neville Lamson, Pierce, Nebraska, to Zola Noble, Anderson, Indiana, not dated.

[7] “U. S. World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918,” images Ancestry.com (http://www. Ancestry.com, accessed 8 September 2015), card for Lee Roy Troutman, serial number 1426, Local Draft Board, Smyth County, Virginia.

[8] Rich Valley Presbyterian Church Cemetery (Smyth County, Virginia); Lee Roy Troutman, marker; photographed August 2004 by the researcher.

[9] “U. S. World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918,” Lee Roy Troutman, serial no. 1426, Local Draft Board, Smyth Co., Va.

[10] Ibid. On his draft registration dated April 1917, he claims exemption because of “ill health.”

[11] Rich Valley Presbyterian Church (Saltville, Virginia), “Minutes of Session, Vol. 4,” 1 April 1918 - unspecified, page 6, entry 1 September 1918; photocopy in possession of author, from original stored at the church.

[12] “Obituary,” names the surviving children and the places they lived.

© 2015, Z. T. Noble