[Granville-Hough] 27 Apr 2009 - Lou Hough
Trustees and Executors for Granville W. Hough
gwhough at oakapple.net
Fri Jul 30 06:55:52 PDT 2010
Lou Hough Smith County Nurse
In my childhood, we had several nice pictures of Aunt Lou Hough in our
home between Mize and Magee, MS. She was a tall, spare, handsome woman
who was born 31 Dec 1868 as the third child of Nora (Miller) (Keyes)
Hough and the first child of Frank Hough. Her birth name was Louisa T.
with T. possibly meaning Talathy. (Frank had a sister Talathy Cuma who
must have died young.) Lou was probably born on Hiram Miller land on
Cohay Creek southeast of Mize in the middle of Sullivans Hollow. Her
half sister, Nannie Keyes was six years older and became her natural
caretaker and foster mother. Aunt Lou did not marry at the normal age
but became a practical nurse. In those post Civil War days, there were
no nursing schools and very few hospitals. You learned nursing by going
with a doctor and observing what he did and by following his
instructions. Aunt Lou is recalled as being the nurse for Dr. Andrew
Tullos of Raleigh for many years in the 1890 and 1900 decades. She
helped deliver dozens and dozens of babies at Raleigh and within horse
and buggy range. She helped with many of her own nieces and nephews.
There is one interesting anecdote about a niece who was in the throes of
delivering an illegitimate child. She was squalling all the while that
she had never been with a man and was not pregnant. The child was soon
born, a healthy daughter. Aunt Lou quickly cleaned her up and brought
her to the young mother with the remark, Its time you stopped this
squalling about not being pregnant and start suckling your baby. She is
hungry. So Aunt Lou had no special procedures for virgin births. Just
take care of the baby and get it suckling. Later in life, the young
mother herself became a practical nurse, probably faced with similar
situations. The hungry young baby daughter, I believe, became the first
R. N. in the family. I cannot say that Aunt Lou was the first
professional nurse in Smith County. I simply do not know for sure that
was the case. Certainly in her time, she was the best known nurse, as
well known as a nurse as Dr. Tullos was as a doctor. When lumber camps
were established about 1900, Aunt Lou became a better paid nurse for
lumber companies and worked for them the rest of her life. One of the
postal cards we had kept was from Aunt Lou in a lumber camp in Bogalusa,
LA. She wanted Lisha to meet her in Mize when she arrived on the Laurel
Branch train.
Of course, lumber camps did not attract the social elite. Lumbering was
rough, grimy, dangerous work; and the things a nurse had to do did not
attract the squeamish. Accidents, mayhem, and diseases were endemic.
Though Aunt Lou must have talked of her experiences, no one recorded
them. When she died from dropsy (congenital heart disease) at age 47, it
was probably aggravated by malaria or other diseases common to lumber
camps. Though Aunt Lou did marry, she had no children. In 1910, she was
listed with the Hough family as a widow Sinely. No one ever told me
anything about a person of this name; but he was probably a lumberman.
Later, she married a man named A. Camp, most likely in the timber
business as the name is not common in Smith County. He and Lou had
acquired some timbered land which they sold in order to go to Louisiana
for a new start in life. Mr. Camp took the money and left for Louisiana
and was never heard from again. This left Aunt Lou believing in Mr.
Camp, but with everyone else telling her he had absconded with the
money. Mr. Camp had been last seen at a house, presumably south of
Raleigh, on the way to the railroad at Mize or Taylorsville. People at
the house said they had seen Mr. Camp but that he had soon gone on his
way. The people said that they, themselves, planned to move to
California, which they soon did.
After Aunt Lou became reconciled to the loss of Mr. Camp, she lived with
her brother, Rufus Hough, and presumably practiced her nursing skills.
Her niece, Elma Lee (Hough) Butler once told me that Aunt Lou was
engaged to marry Ingram Austin Bradshaw at the time of her death. Mr.
Bradshaw indeed married Rose Ella Hough, younger sister to Lou. (I
cannot work out the timing of this story. Aunt Ella had one child, Ilene
Bradshaw, but her birth date of 1913 does not fit with the death date of
1915 I have for Aunt Lou. My death date for Aunt Ella is 1926. Either
Elma Lee did not have the story quite right or we have some wrong dates.)
I was told that Aunt Lou died from dropsy 19 Dec 1915 while still living
with Uncle Rufus. I do not know where she was buried, but my guess would
be either at the Dukes Cemetery near Whiteoak, or at Liberty Cemetery
near Raleigh with her parents, Frank and Nora Hough. About fifty years
after Mr. Camp disappeared, my brother Dueward Hough heard or read that
the house where Mr. Camp was last seen had been torn down. When the
earth where the house had stood was plowed up, a skeleton was found.
Duewards dilemma was what to do. Was he the only person who knew the
story of Mr. Camp? Should he make a fuss and risk the emnity of a
powerful Taylorsville family which was related to the house occupants?
What if the occupants were still alive in California? The events had
happened about the time Dueward was born in 1913 and he only had hearsay
evidence passed on through many hands. He actually did nothing, and the
incident was soon filed away when no one claimed the skeleton. I do not
know the name of the family involved. (The total context of the events
leads me to believe that Mr. Camp was a simple fellown who disclosed too
much information to the wrong people and died from foul play.)
I have always believed that Aunt Lou was an honorable and respected
person who gave her life to the service of others. Probably no one is
now alive who benefited personally from her work, care, and practical
knowledge. She may no longer be remembered outside the Hough family. We
can say that, as a family, we have always thought highly of nurses and
nursing. Aunt Lou was first.
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