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Post by Deleted on Mar 1, 2019 2:22:47 GMT -5
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Post by Deleted on Mar 1, 2019 2:26:29 GMT -5
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Post by Deleted on Oct 10, 2019 16:38:33 GMT -5
The First Isaac M. Howard by BY ROB ROEHMhowardhistory.com/2019/10/10/the-first-isaac-m-howard/In [18]49 three brothers started for California. On the Arkansas River they split up, one went on to California where he lived the rest of his life, one went back to Georgia and one, William Benjamin Howard, went to Mississippi . . .
—Robert E. Howard to H.P. Lovecraft, ca. October 1930
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Post by Deleted on Dec 18, 2019 2:25:30 GMT -5
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Post by keith on Jan 6, 2020 4:55:35 GMT -5
Now this is what I call a worthwhile thread! It will probably feature a lot of varied opinion, because I think the details of the Howards' ancestry further back than REH's parents aren't all that well documented, and there's a lot of contradictory family stories in the oral history. I understand REH's mother Hester embroidered a bit.
Putting in my five cents' worth concerning her -- the more I learn, the more my mouth tends to foam when I consider the know-nothings (yes, de Camp, I see you) who have described her as a neurotic, smothering monster-mother who clung to and repressed her son, and was probably a hypochondriac too. The more I've learned -- from Barbara Barrett among others -- the more likely it appears that she suffered from tuberculosis, consumption, the "white plague." It was THE nightmare disease back in her day, and the treatment was worse than the illness.
Likely? It's certain. Her June 12th, 1936, death certificate shows that she died of it. Since her husband was a country doctor and had to travel around seeing his patients, that left it largely up to Bob to look after her at home. And so much for the canard that he was a repressed mother's boy, excessively and unhealthily devoted to Hester. Back then, especially in Texas, you stood by family, that was it.
Hester went through hell when she had to enter a hospital or sanitarium. The treatment was awful, and patients had to put up, frequently, with tyrant staff who made the head nurse in ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST look like Mary Poppins. It's fiction, but nevertheless the Richard McKenna story "Casey Agonistes", about the way patients in a TB ward respond to and escape their stresses, rings completely true. The narrator opens with the sour comment, "They won't let you just plain die. They make you do it by the book."
If you can get hold of Barbara's "Hester Jane Howard and Tuberculosis", do.
Don't, please, tell me Mark Finn's BLOOD AND THUNDER is missing from your bookshelf.
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Post by linefacedscrivener on Jan 26, 2020 10:43:38 GMT -5
If you can get hold of Barbara's "Hester Jane Howard and Tuberculosis", do. Don't, please, tell me Mark Finn's BLOOD AND THUNDER is missing from your bookshelf. I discovered Barbara Barrett's article last summer while rooting around on the Two-Gun Racounteur website using the Wayback Machine (handy too that). The article was meticulously researched and, like Keith says, is one of the best presentations of Hester Howard's battle with Tuberculosis and how the disease affected not only her, but her family. The article was titled "Hester Jane Ervin Howard and Tuberculosis" and is in multiple parts. Here is the link for the first part. After reading each part, at the end there is a link to the next part that should work. The only thing that was not preserved well were the pictures that were included in the post. Some of them can be clicked on to see what was posted, while others just die on the vine. Enjoy the article! web.archive.org/web/20170610154555/http://www.rehtwogunraconteur.com/hester-jane-ervin-howard-and-tuberculosis-part-one/ |
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Post by gary on Dec 5, 2023 13:39:13 GMT -5
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