Dad (Roy Dean Ratheal) would like for me (Wynola Merle Ratheal Early) to correct the story about his father´s death. Otto Freeman Ratheal and his brothers were building "tanks" for livestock and to hold water from the windmill just before he became ill. He had battled with pneumonia every winter for several years and the doctor had told Emma that he was down to only 1 lung due to the damage caused by the previous bouts of pneumonia. During a bout with pneumonia, Otto would cough up a lot of blood; Emma called him a "free bleeder". Emma told my mother that he had become really sick that day after working. She and Lois had both tried to keep him from going out that day, but he enjoyed working and was determined to contribute his own share of labor, no matter where or when his brothers and Walter were working or if he felt bad.There was no horseplay at the tank during this period of time. Winter in West Texas is fickle. If the weather starts out warm, a "blue norther" may blow into the area in the next few minutes. These guys knew that; all children raised in West Texas know it.... Otto´s brothers didn´t throw him into a tank in December. The horseplay always occurred in the summer and late spring when they would wrestle each other into the tanks, but they didn´t do anything to harm him this one day, he just was really tired, worked too hard and became ill again. Emma said that she knew that he was ill when they came home because of the "blue look" around his mouth and that he was sweating heavily and had chills. Otto went to bed and tried to fight it off.
When the Ratheal family gathered for Christmas, someone in the family always gave an old suitcase with some sort of crazy present in it to someone else in the family. Otto didn´t feel any better on Christmas day, but the "suitcase" gag was pulled again. Lois said that after Otto died on the day after Christmas that the Ratheals never traded the suitcase around again. They just didn´t have the heart to do so. Otto was having a hard time breathing and was getting no rest, so the doctor gave him a dose of laudanum...too much for him, apparently "knocking him out" and he drowned on the fluid in his lung(s). Dad (Roy Dean) was in the next room playing with a truck he had received for Christmas. He remembers the day well. He has often talked about how quiet the house was at the time; how everyone just stood or leaned against each other and cried. They came and got him to view his father´s body. His memory (and a source of nightmares for awhile) was the silver dollars that they placed on Otto´s eyes after his body was "laid out".
Lois was pregnant with Rita Helen at the time. Lois told me that the summer and fall before Otto´s death had been a sweet one. Otto wanted her and Roy Dean with him all the time. They rode the tractor with him and went everywhere he went. She said that she never got her housework done (she´d laugh...because like me, she never got it done completely and she never saw it as very important in the long range of things...stuff just got messed up again, she said.). Lois was baptized during that summer and Otto said later that he wished that he had been baptized again. She said that she felt really funny when he said that... like he had a premonition of his own death she thought.
Emma would talk about Otto and his death to my mother Merle many, many times, but never was there any mention of his brothers causing him any harm. They loved each other dearly and although as ornery as they were would have fought to the death for each other. I know Emma would have told my mother and that Lois would have told me if there had been any horseplay that led to this.
Inez notes state marriage in 1930
- Spouse: Mary Lois HENDERSON
- Birth: 21 Jun 1911, Childress, Hill Co., TX12,6
- Death: 18 Aug 1993, Quaker Villa Nursing Home, Lubbock, TX25,7,12,6
- Marr: 11 Jul 1931, Crosbyton, Crosby Cnty, TX25
None Submitted
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Crosby County TXGenWeb Project
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