Remembering family hit hard by disease 905/05/08)

The year is 1860. It's early fall in Noble Township, where Jason and Nancy Griffith and their nine children are farming on 120 acres.

Their living conditions are rustic to say the least. The nearest town of any size is miles away.

It's Jason who first falls ill. A bacillus begins to affect his air passages and throat. His temperature rises frighteningly. His tonsils are inflamed, and he is gasping for breath.

Those are the classic symptoms of "black diphtheria," a disease whose cause and means of transmission were unknown at the time. It would be 1898 before an antitoxin could be developed.

On Sept. 25, 1860, it claims the life of Jason Griffith. He is 59.

And over the next month, it moves like a plague through his family.

The children fall like leaves in the autumn.

Martha Griffith dies on Oct. 2, a week after her father. She is 22.

James Griffith dies on Oct. 9, a week after Martha. He is 18.

Two days later, on Oct. 11, the disease claims Emma Griffith. She is 3.

The next day, on Oct. 12, Benjamin W. Griffith dies. He is 16.

Benjamin's brother Jacob dies a day later, on Oct. 13. He is 11.

Nine-year-old Esther Griffith dies the next day, on Oct. 14.

Almost exactly a month after the death of her father, Mary Griffith dies. It is Oct. 23, and she is 13.

By the time the disease has run its course, Nancy Griffith will have lost both her husband and seven of her nine children. Only Isaac A. Griffith and Sarah Malvina Griffith survive.

Nancy Griffith would go on to live another 38 years, carrying with her memories of that dreadful autumn of 1860 until her death at age 86 in 1898.

Fast-forward 108 years after that bleak October, and a young journalist named Dan Rottenberg is writing a farewell piece to readers of The Commercial Review. He's leaving the editor's job to take a position as a reporter with The Wall Street Journal and wants to share his love of local history with his adopted community.

As part of that farewell piece in May of 1968, Rottenberg takes readers on a historical tour of the county, including a stop at Mt. Zion Cemetery, where the Griffith family headstones give him pause. All those children snuffed out. All those lives lost.

Rottenberg's tour is still used by the Jay County Historical Society and, and the stories of local history it recounted are still being told in Jay County schools.

Now fast-forward another 39 years. It's 2007, and Judge Haynes Elementary School teachers Rex Pinkerton and Terri Franklin are talking to their students about local history as part of the third grade curriculum.

Pinkerton is something of a history buff and serves on the Jay County Cemetery Commission. Through county historian Jane Ann Spencer, he learns that the headstones for the Griffith family at Mt. Zion are in need of restoration.

At some time in the past, in an apparent effort to preserve them, the headstones had been laid flat. But now they're settling into the soil and grass is growing up over them.

So he mentions it to his third grade class, and he asks Franklin to mention it to her class.

And then, with encouragement from the students, Pinkerton sets about finding the funds to have the Griffith markers restored. The classes contributed $200 from The Portland Foundation's Care and Share program, which promotes philanthropy. They received a $300 grant from the Indianapolis Colts. And they received a $250 Teacher Creativity Grant from the foundation as well.

That brought them up to $750. The quote for the work came in at $740.

In the summer of 2007, Matt Campbell, Connersville, who has done work for the cemetery commission in the past, poured new bases for the stones and set them permanently upright.

It was a fitting memorial to the eight lives lost that terrible fall in 2860, but the story doesn't end there.

The descendants of the two surviving Griffith children learned of the class project.

Nan Rowles and Phil Montgomery, both of Portland, are descendants of Sarah Griffith Montgomery. John and Tom Young of Portland and Rebecca Strohl of Chautauqua, N.Y., are descendants of Isaac A. Griffith.

They decided to say, "Thank you."

On Saturday, May 10, a new monument adjacent to the restored headstones will honor those third graders, now fourth graders, at Judge Haynes. It bears the names, dates of death, and ages of those who lost their lives; the old stones, while restored, are nearly illegible.

The monument also says, "This 2008 marker acknowledges the Griffith headstone restoration work done by the 2006-2007 third grade classes of Judge Haynes School (teachers Rex Pinkerton and Terri Franklin). Isaac A. and Sarah Malvina were the only children to survive the black diphtheria of 1860. The living descendants of Isaac A. Griffith and Sarah Griffith Montgomery express their appreciation by making this marker possible."

The public is invited to a dedication ceremony for the marker at 4:30 p.m. next Saturday. Mt. Zion Cemetery is located at Jay County roads 600 East and 200 North.

Those attending may want to bring lawn chairs. In case of rain, the program will be moved into Mt. Zion United Methodist Church.

[[In-content Ad]]