Boys, stand by mother, she may become old and fretful and possibly hard to please, but hold up her hands and steady her trembling, tottering steps.

Autobiography and reminiscences by John W. Carroll.

A few more years of clearing land, rolling logs, etc., brought me to the year 1856.  Mother's health, which was always poor, had gone almost completely away; she became almost bedfast for the remainder of her life and to add to our troubles, father, while assisting neighbor to raise house, had the misfortune to have his leg broken below the knee.  We made litter and neighbors brought him home, one man at each of the four corners.  To further add to our troubles, as though we did not yet have enough, brother, next younger than I and the two oldest sisters were taken sick of typhoid fever.  I, being the only one of the family old enough and well enough to do anything, all this was more than I could do, but we secured the aid of good lady and by the assistance of kind neighbors, which we always had, we did pretty well.  Father recovered after long time as did also brother and sisters, but our poor mother gradually sank.  Physicians administered to her the best they could, but she gradually wasted away from the ravages of that awful disease known as consumption of the bowels.  She spent her life for the good, upbuilding, consolation, support, and encouragement of her husband and children many were the times that heard her encouraging words to my father in the days of our family afflictions, telling him to fear not; the Lord would provide; counseling as children as how we should live and act.  She, feeling and knowing that the end was near, gave to her expressions a deep, fervid, intense interest that they would not otherwise have had.

She had always managed, some way, to clothe, mostly with the work of her own hands, her family, especially the children; cotton goods for the summer and woolen linseys and jeans for the winter, dying the woolen goods with the bark of the walnut tree which gave a beautiful dark brown color and made it very pretty.  The buttons for these goods she made by covering a piece of leather or gourd with some dark material.  She lived as the Scriptures describes, a good mother.  She looked well to the ways of her husband.  I gave to her in her sickness my best attention, while she was sick, and as the other members of the family who were sick grew better I came more and more to the assistance of my mother, but alas! the end came on the evening of March 27th. 1857.  She called me to the bedside and told me she was dying; the three next children being unable to go to her, father with difficulty being at the bedside.  She uttered a short prayer, pressed us to her dying breast and said to me "John, you have been a dutiful son.  Meet me in heaven." Then a few feeble words to father and me to care for her children, and all was over.  We carried her remains to the family cemetery where they were decently interred: I, being the only member of the family who was able to go to the grave.  Returning home, everything was sad and lonely; mother gone, the family sick, but after all our log cabin was our home.  To care for the sick was my duty which I did as faithfully as I could.  The deep interest I felt in them and my knowledge of their gradual and permanent improvement caused a more hopeful spirit to come over me by soon seeing them all able to be stirring a little in the house.  Spring being now well advanced, 1 went about making a small corn crop.  So after a few weeks I had it planted; later along father and brother got able to help me some and after all we made a fair crop, a sustenance.  Boys, let me say right here, be good to mother: she it is who will go down to the very death for you; she it is who will never forsake you; father, brothers, sisters, aye, even your wife, but mother never: though a felon's chains might bind your hands (which God forbid), the world pass by and scoff, but mother will be there to plead, to comfort, to counsel and to console.  Boys, stand by mother, she may become old and fretful and possibly hard to please, but hold up her hands and steady her trembling, tottering steps.