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Guaranteed Human.

And we returned to our American stories.

Up next, a story from our regular contributor, recipient of our Great American

Storytelling Award and Contest, and a friend of our show, Joy Neal Kidney. Joy is the author

of Leora's letters and Leora's Dexter's stories, two phenomenal books about her family's

history. Today she shares with us a story entitled

Dreaded Diseases of the Great Depression. Take it away, Joy. Have you ever heard of

anyone dying from the mumps or whooping cough? Both profoundly affected Iowa's

Gough and Wilson families during the 1920s. They had already

suffered through severe cases of the so-called Spanish influenza early in the decade. Leora,

the oldest of Sherton and Laura Goff's big family was married to Clay Wilson.

They had three children by then.

Her brother Jennings had returned from the Great War

and married Tess, a local Guthrie County girl.

In 1921, Jennings and Tess had a daughter Maxine,

who was born the same spring as the Wilson twins.

Three years later, Tess gave birth to a son. Both Tess and baby Merrill came down with the mumps.

Merrill was just four days old when his mother died.

Jennings and his two small children began to make their home with his parents, Sherton-Lora.

When the Wilson family moved to Dexter, the Goffs moved there as well.

Along with many others, both families had lost their farms after the Great War.

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