December of 1918 was a brutal one for LaGrange County, Indiana. Snow and cold pushed people indoors, and the Spanish Flu spread in a pandemic wave across the undulated fields dotted with farmhouses.
Nestled in a home along Route 2 in Shipshewana, the Yoder family experienced a birth and two deaths in a matter of two days. Mary Yoder, very ill with the flu, gave birth to her daughter Grace on December 27, 1918. The LaGrange County records list Grace as dying on December 27, but not as a stillbirth, which leads one to think the family might have spent a brief time with her. Mary then succumbed to pneumonia brought on by the flu the next day.
The heartache was profound. Beulah, Mary’s oldest, believed it was a sorrow so big that her father, Henry, couldn’t bear to stay in the same home that his wife of nearly 14 years, had occupied. She believed it’s why he sold their home so soon after her death and moved the family.
But in the middle of that sad, gray winter there lived a bright spark in the Yoder home. She had dark curls, plump cheeks and an endearing smile that must have given her family the bit of brightness it needed to keep moving forward. Her name was Carrie, named for a friend who lived up the hill named Carrie Belle
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Carrie said she thinks they had him on a cot inside, and that she wasn’t allowed in the room for a while. In her mind she thought maybe he was in there alive like before and that they didn’t want her to see him. That upset her. And then during the viewing she was outdoors playing and someone instructed her to come inside and to give Father a kiss goodbye. She can’t recall whether that is exactly what happened because the memory was painful and she’s tried to forget it. At four years old, that’s understandable. She says as much as they encouraged to look at her father and tell him goodbye, she just couldn’t. She learned to brush things like that