This is my uncle, Donald Eugene Jaynes. This is the last photo of him that was taken. It sat in my grandmother's living room until she died. I have it now. He was only 16, a new driver, and a popular guy in his set. He was a good boy and a good son. He got tired one day and just never got better. They took him to the hospital, but the news was bad. He had leukemia. There was nothing that could be done at that time. My grandfather was told that if he stayed in the hospital, they would use Don as a guinea pig. A lab rat. They couldn't help Don, but they might learn something that would help someone else one day. It was 1938 so what could one expect. My grandfather and the doctor decided Don would go home but they would not tell my grandmother that he was dying. After all, she wouldn't be able to function. Instead, they gave her a list of things to make him feel better. She worked hard to make him better. Then he died. She was devastated. She felt she hadn't done enough. Or worse, did something wrong. Life in that household was never the same after that. My mother turned 3 just 9 days after he died. She remembered that time, even though she was so young. She remembered that they had gone someplace, and Don was laying with the covers to his neck. Everyone was talking quietly so she thought he was asleep. But he never came home. It was years before she could understand. Life had changed; it was never the same again.
I have put his Funeral Register in a Google Photos Album and I am sharing it. Just click on his name above. I've gone over it and know of, or the families of all these people. It was 85 years ago. I am sure they are all gone now. If you have or know of a family in Jackson County, Indiana, you might just recognize a name.
A lesson was reinforced here. If two men put their heads together and make decisions, nothing good will come of it. My grandmother never got to say her goodbyes. Also, ink and pens were messy and expensive, so most of the time it was pencil.
