A Remarkable, potentially paranormal, Case Indeed!

A few weeks ago, I had mentioned that verifying some of these seemingly crazy family stories all of a sudden became much easier with access to a newspaper search program.  My mother, backed up by her sister, would tell of a tale that sounded too spooky to be true.  But, accordingly, it had been passed down in their family for a few generations and when I'd tell my kids, they just kind of thought "sure, whatever dad....how soon before we put you in a home?"

But, in fact, here it is.  A remarkable case, as published in the Culver Citizen in 1916.  My great grandmother's sister, Rosetta, suffered from straw or thorn-like expulsions from her hands that proved to be very painful during the course of a few weeks.  It left doctors dumbfounded, to be certain.  This side of the family always seemed to be given a little to the supernatural, and so it had been passed on to us that the family had thought it was a curse from a tenant farmer's wife who lived on the property.  That is not covered in the story.

Nonetheless, my great great grandfather, Frances Ervin, took her around the county displaying the straws (about 200 of them) to newspaper men like the one who published it in the Plymouth Democrat, which was also carried in the Citizen on August 31, 1916.  Hopefully, the article displays large enough to read.  Maybe read to young children as a bedtime story like it was told to us!

The Ervins had a large farm on Juniper Road in northern Marshall County.  From Frances and his wife, Jennie, descended three daughters and one son, and an infant daughter named Pearl, who died in 1913.  The children, whom have many descendants in the Bremen area today, are Bertha (Crothers), Dora (Thornton), Anthony Ervin, and little Rosetta (Booker), the subject of the thorn-phenomenon.  One of these descendants has proven themselves to be a bit of a thorn in my side too. 

So far, I haven't found a story that was told that hasn't had some truth to it.