ISABELLA

Isabelle

d n english

Let’s start the story…

When I opened the diary Ida left I remember  laughing. Inside the leather bound book Ida had left me a note. The note gave me  the names of the characters in her story and in the post script.

She had been thinking about this  for awhile. The note was dated  1952 on a hospital note sheet. 

Cast of characters:

Isabella 

Cecil -her first husband

C.E. Jr.-her brother 1895

Ivey -her sister born 1896

Elizabeth- Isabella’s mother

James – Isabella’s second husband

James Jr. – brother 1912

Ida-adorable surprise child  1916 ( yes, that is what she wrote)

The diary Ida provided me covered the years 1898-1909. Isabella did not do a diary or journal like most of us do she only wrote once a month.

1898 June 

I am sitting here realizing at 24 I am a widow with two small children, my loves Ivey and C.E. Jr, I am heartbroken but I have to be strong. Mother moved in with me the day before the funeral I don’t know what I would do without her. The ladies of the our church were here to help . A couple of the men from the church came and moved the furniture out of Cecil’s office to make a sleeping room for mother.

Let me go back in case someone is reading this and I am gone.

My name is Isabella and I am a nurse. I was trained In Massachusetts medical school. I was in a class of 12 students. Our training consisted of a year of intense class work then we started work in the hospital to learn from working with the Doctors and older Nurses. This is where I met my beloved Cecil it was love at first site. He was tall handsome and so sweet. After a year of courting with my parents approval we married in 1894.

We moved to Nashville where we met Dr. Rochelle. He convinced Cecil we needed to move to this up and growing town of Jackson Tennessee. So in 1897 we moved into this beautiful home that Mrs. Rochelle picked out for our family. 

Fortunately because of an inheritance from my Father’s estate we where able to purchase the home.

I need to describe this for you . It is a beautiful single story off East Main Street. It has a great front porch, when you enter the door to the right is where we set up housekeeping on the left is an apartment with one sleeping room , a parlor with a fireplace and in the back a nice size kitchen with a wood  burning cook stove .I tell you about the back porch later.

 Our side has a large parlor with a beautiful fireplace. There are three sleeping rooms one we set up as Cecil’s office. We had a dining room that lead into a large kitchen with a big food pantry. The ladies of our church( Episcopal )had stocked the pantry with can goods, in our refrigerator we had containers of food (milk, meat, a cake, and bread). We had been able to send our furniture ahead with money  for a stove and refrigerator. When we arrived in Jackson by wagon everything had been set up for us. We were so blessed. Oh I forgot the back porch on each side there was a private room with a potbelly stove, a claw foot tub, a basin with a mirror and you know. Oh  yea, a hand water pump like we had in the kitchen. We could set a pot of water to heat up water for the bath. You entered this room from the kitchen. Even with this feature we had a good size back porch and a nice backyard and alley for the trades people.

Our tenant , Linda Lou a nurse,  from the moment she move in we were best friends. 

To be continued