If It Weren’t for Bad Luck

“Frank Kellett buried a seven-year-old son last week.”

I haven’t even posted the two... two articles in The Albion Journal reporting that their house was struck by lightning in a little less than three years.

And their was that running over the boy with the wheat cutter thing. Not sure if this was the same poor kid.

And then Frank himself gets sick and dies within a day.

It happened all too frequently in the 1890’s in America.

Even the Dixon’s had their share of bad luck. George Dixon, our grandfather, had two older brothers. But neither survived to adulthood. One got sick and died at age 11. The other had a fatal hunting accident, which was a very common thing, at age 18. Both fatal sicknesses and gun accidents were very, very common in Edwards County in the 1880’s and 1890’s.

George’s dad Joe Dixon (Jr.) married the widow of Frank Kellett. Years after Frank’s death and the loss of Joe (Jr.)’s wife Mina.