Forever Great-Grandma's Baby

My father always referred to the brother just older than him as "Little Robert" and "Baby Johnny" was the moniker for the youngest child. Both of these sons of my paternal grandparents died as little ones. (Blog postings about these siblings of Dad are entitled "Robert Bernard Gates" and "The 75th Birthday of John Francis Gates." The posting below discusses a Rainey baby. 

She Never Grew Up

                Mother, Bernyce Smith Gates, spent many days with her maternal grandmother, Rosa Jarrell Rainey. Mother lived within a half-mile of her Grandma Rainey during most of her childhood and until her grandmother’s death.

                As an only child, she spent time by herself while her parents toiled in the field during the extreme drought and dust storms of the 1930s. The blog entitled When Grandma and Grandpa Got a Parrot Instead of Rent discussed Grandpa’s adaptation to the farming equipment so they could take Mother, as a little one, to the field with them. It can be accessed at https://bernadeanjgates.blogspot.com/2015/04/when-grandpa-and-grandma-got-parrot.html

                Mother soon became independent and savvy enough to cross the creek and walk up the hill to Grandma Rainey’s house. She enjoyed happy hours working with her beloved aunt, Alice. Even though Alice was legally blind and attended very little school, she could read large print. They cooked together. Once Mother could write, she would copy, in larger script, the recipes Alice loved to prepare.

                Many nights found Mother staying with her grandma and Alice. Each time in her grandma’s bedroom, Mother was enamored by the attention-getting portraits hanging on two of the walls. On the east wall, Mother recalled an enormous portrait of her grandfather, William Marion Rainey, with his father, Thomas J. Rainey. She remembered vividly the dark hair of her great-grandfather, whereas her grandpa had lighter colored hair. She knew he had hair with an auburn tinge even though color photography was unheard of in the Bend in the early 20^th century.

                Just above Rosa Rainey’s bed, a large photograph of a baby hung on the north wall. Mother’s grandmother never spoke about the baby whose portrait occupied such a prominent place in her bedroom. My mother, not inquisitive or a talker, under no circumstance dreamed of approaching the subject with her beloved grandmother.

Della Rainey born February 13, 1897,
died March 21, 1900. Discovering this 
wallet -sized photo of the enormous 
wall portrait was one of the highlights 
of 2018 for me.

                Often over the years, Mother has lamented the loss of her grandmother’s treasured photographs. My grandmother suspected that Aunt Emma had discarded “those old pictures” when redecorated her mother's home upon retiring to the farm from her career at the U.S. Printing Office in Washington, D.C.

                Once again, my grandma’s tattered book of recorded family history held pertinent family facts. The baby in the photograph was Della Rainey. She was born on February 13, 1897 in Shawnee, Oklahoma Territory. At Della’s birth, Daisy was almost three and a half years old. Lewis was a little over two years old. The family marked Little Della’s third birthday. Sadly, in little over a month, she died from a malady that Great -grandma Rainey called summer complaint. The name derived from its usual occurrence in the heat of summer due to food contamination stemming from the lack of refrigeration in that era. Summer complaint was an intense diarrhea causing severe dehydration leading to the death of many infants and toddlers prior to the days of medication to quickly curtail its devastating effects. As we know today, an illness of this nature can be caused by a virus or bacterial infection.

                According to the site, Michigan Family History Network, which can be accessed at: http://www.mifamilyhistory.org/genhelp/diseases.aspx , summer complaint in the weaned child may have originated because of contaminated water, milk, or food. This site used the term cholera infantum. Within 24 hours of the violent assault on the little one’s body, death can occur.

                What helplessness and heart-rending anguish Great-grandma Rainey must have felt as she sat by the bedside of Little Della! As the tiny patient worsened, her restlessness would have turned to listlessness, as her mother cradled her limp little body in her final hours. This infantile disorder, characterized by intense thirst, culminated with the cherubic face appearing to age rapidly right before her distraught mother’s eyes. By March 21, 1900, little Della Rainey was gone. Baby Della was buried in an apparently unmarked grave in the Dale Cemetery. (My research in the online cemetery records of Dale Cemetery rendered no marked burial place for the Rainey baby.)

                Curiously, my grandmother, Gladys Vivian Rainey Smith, was born less than five months later on August 11 of the same year. Grandma always said she was born in Shawnee when it was a tent city. Evidently, little Della’s death must have taken place in a tent, too. Grandma’s little, worn family history book lists “Shawnee” as the place of death for Della, the first death recorded for their immediate family.

                As I thought about the death of Della and its impact on Rosa Rainey, my great grandma, I remembered a paragraph from a blog posting entitled Hens, Humming, and Having Enough at https://bernadeanjgates.blogspot.com/2014/01/hens-humming-and-having-enough.html Curiously, Mother remembered her grandmother’s humming. I recalled humming during the days of when Dad faced grave illness and uncertainty from hour to hour, as I provided the mundane but necessary and comforting care. My spirit was lifted as I hummed, and I think Dad was uplifted, too.  I knew we shared the daily awareness of how the Lord used music to redirect our thoughts and hearts back to Him.

                Then I remembered a hymn written by one of the most prolific hymn lyrists of the latter 19^th century. Fanny Crosby, the gifted blind poet, wrote many of the songs loved and sang by the believers in the late 1800s. Fanny Crosby and her husband had one baby born to them, a precious little girl in 1859. Although nothing is recorded about her grief over the death of her only baby, the song designated as the most beloved hymn written by Crosby has been speculated as an expression of her grief turned into a testimony of hope and assurance. In 1868, Fanny Crosby crafted Safe in the Arms of Jesus. Below are the encouraging words of the third verse and chorus:

Safe in the Arms of Jesus

Jesus, my heart’s dear refuge,

Jesus has died for me;

Firm on the Rock of Ages,

Ever my trust shall be.

Here let me wait with patience,

Wait till the night is o’er;

Wait till I see the morning

Break on the golden shore.

Safe in the arms of Jesus,

Safe on His gentle breast,

There by His love o’ershaded,

Sweetly my soul shall rest.

                Numerous people told Fanny Crosby how the song she designated her favorite, Safe in the Arms of Jesus, carried them through losses and gave comfort beyond belief. The tender picture of their beloved cradled in the arms of Jesus provided comfort above measure.

Since this hymn quickly became a standard for funerals during that era, it is likely Great-grandma Rainey, a young Christian saved only four years earlier, sought and found courage in the Word of God and maybe even this song to know her Baby Della was safe in the arms of Jesus.