Evelyn McHugh 1915 - 2007

My mother died peacefully yesterday afternoon.

She was 92--born in 1915 in a hollow in Kentucky, she had a memory of the Spanish Influenza epidemic of 1918--her father brought the entire family through with vegetable soup. She remembered the introduction of cars to her small town in Kentucky. She rode the back of a plow horse to school with her older brother and little sister. She was born in a time where airplanes of were exotic, but traveled to Paris, London, Switzerland, Brazil, Egypt, the Caribbean and China. She had a brother and brother-in-law both serve in the Pacific theater in World War Two.

She had first showed signs of dementia when she was 77 but was still pretty healthy until she broke her hip this fall. On Friday, Hospice was brought in because her dementia had progressed to the point where she no longer spoke nor ate. This week Bob and I will be going to Kentucky for the service where she will be buried in a tiny family cemetery on top of a mountain in Swan Pond.

I have missed her for many years. I am glad that at the end she could be made comfortable and unafraid.