Roses Will Bloom Again
by
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Chapter Five of my book. He’s AN ALL TIME GOD; I got sick with a high fever and a rash on me.
Mama and daddy carried me to the doctor, but the doctor told them I had the measles, and mama told him that we had both had the measles, but he told her there were several kinds of measles, so we went on back home.
This went on for a few days and Carolyn got sick, the same way. The doctor came to our house and still said we had the measles. But in a day or two, daddy took us both to Lee County Hospital, in Sanford, N.C. We were put in the same room together.
Mama said that Carolyn died within two or three hours after we got to the hospital, but I was so sick, I didn’t know it.
After she died, another doctor in Sanford found out we had Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever caused
from a tick bite.
Mama remembered getting a tick off of me, but not my sister. We had these little puppies, we were always playing with and mama thought I might have gotten the tick off of one of them, but we don’t know.
After they found out what was wrong with us, they started treating me, but the doctors had already given up on me, but there is a higher power than a doctor that was saving me for a purpose, PRAISE GOD!
God was looking out for me even then, and oh if I could have ever known what I had facing me years down the road, I don’t know what I would have done.
God is awesome; He is always there, even when we don’t even know about God.
While I was still in the hospital, someone, I don’t know who, brought me a coloring book and every day, I sent a page for my sister to color and send back to me, I thought they had moved her to another room. So every day someone colored a page and would bring it back to me, and I would think she did it, not knowing, she was already in her grave.
My grandmother Hall, told mama, when the doctor’s gave up on me, “I wouldn’t bury Carolyn, just wait and you can bury them both together”. That made my mama cry even more to think grandma would say that to her, I don’t like it to this day, what was she thinking?
I don’t know of any parents any stronger than mine, because, they had just buried one of their girls and have to come in my hospital room and give me a smile, I don’t know how they did it.
I had to have seven blood transfusions and back then, you didn’t have blood banks, like you do today, so my daddy had to go out in the community and get seven men that had my blood type and get them to come and give me a pint of blood.
I praise God still today for those men and I remember every one of them, but most of them have gone on today.
When I got able to leave the hospital, I could not walk and daddy had to carry me.Soon as we got in the car to come home, I told daddy that I wanted to go see where they buried my sister, so they took me to the cemetery.
And I can still remember daddy carrying me in his arms and me looking down at her grave, then I said “let’s go home”
So we got home and they put me to bed. They made me promise that I would not try to get out of the bed by myself. I said “mama I won’t”.
It was so lonely without Carolyn, I missed her so much, I would cry for her to come back, but I knew she couldn’t.
I got so tired staying in bed all the time until, when I knew mama was in the kitchen cooking, she could not see me, so I broke my promise to her, I started sliding, ever so gently off the side of the bed, then I would hold on to the side of the bed until, one day I told myself, “fall or not fall, I’m walking”, so I let go of the bed and I found out I could do pretty good, so I got all excited and started going faster and faster until I got to the kitchen where mama was cooking. And she turned around and saw me and I started screaming “I can walk, I can walk”. Me and mama had a time, she ran to the field to get daddy and he came in all excited too. What a happy day!
I thought my parents were so strong, for all they had been through, never knowing what I had facing me in later years.
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About the Book
Frances Eastridge was raised poor near the end of the depression on a tobacco farm, with two of the most special parents anyone could have. Roses Will Bloom Again shares the true story of her life, the good times and the bad. She had only one sister, who died at the age of four from Rocky Mountain Fever caused by a tick bite. As a result, Frances grew up an only child.
After she married, she and her husband, Herbert George, had three beautiful daughters—Carol, Nancy, and Lisa. Sadly, their daughters were not destined to reach adulthood; they died, one by one, of a rare blood disease. By the time Frances was thirty-four years old, she had lost all of her children. Shortly thereafter, her husband began having cardiac issues, having open heart surgery at the age of forty. The couple then went through one thing after another until he died suddenly from a massive heart attack at forty-eight.
While Frances misses her family terribly, she was so proud of all they accomplished in their short lives, particularly her husband. She was amazed by her two oldest daughters, because as sick as they were, they continued to witness for the Lord wherever they went, leading many souls to Him.
Frances hopes her story will be an encouragement to brokenhearted people everywhere, showing them that God is always with them.
About the Author
Frances Eastridge is living proof of that a poor southern farm girl, raised at the end of the depression, could grow up, get married, and have a family, only to lose them all—and yet come out victoriously with God in her life. She currently lives in North Carolina.