52 Ancestors #19: Minnie Nell Houston

Last known photo of Minnie
Nell Houston, date & age
unknown. This photo was
used on the headstone of
her gravesite.

Once again, I am behind in my blogging in the 52 Weeks, 52 Ancestors challenge for 2014. I could make excuses (& I did have some very valid ones for being behind), but I will spare you that.

This week's blog is about my paternal great aunt Minnie Nell Houston. Minnie Nell's life on this earth was brief. She never had the opport-
unity to marry or start a family. Minnie was the last child of nine born to my paternal great grandparents Luther Henderson Houston & Della Green Houston (Schostag) on 29 Nov 1931 in Buckholtz, Milam Co., Texas. She spent most of her life in Milam County & my father, who was just over two years of age when she died, claims to have memories of her picking him up & swinging him high in the air.

Minnie Nell was approaching her sixteenth birthday when tragedy struck & she was diagnosed with carcinoma-
tosis, which is a condition in which multiple carcinomas spread & develop from a primary source. My father said (& I am assuming that he was told this) that it was cancer of the stomach. Peritoneal carcinomatosis (the only thing I could compare this to when I googled) develops in the abdominal cavity & is a rare type of cancer that is advanced & affects the thin layer of tissue surrounding the organs of the abdominal cavity. It develops when other cancers, like colon cancer, rectal & pancreatic cancers spread & are also present. By the time cancer has spread to the peritoneum, the cancer is at an advanced late stage.

Today, doctors would treat this with surgery & aggress-
ive chemotherapy treatment, but back in 1948, such treatment options were not available. Even today, the disease is most often terminal because surgery & chemo options have limited success rates. Back then, there was nothing that could be done & people were told to put their affairs in order. My father says that Minnie Nell's battle with the disease lasted three months before the end came for her. Minnie Nell died on 25 Jan 1948 at John Sealy Hospital in Galveston, Galveston Co., Texas. I hope, for her sake, after reading of the symptoms of the disease, that she did not suffer overmuch. She was laid to rest with other Houston relatives at North Elm Cemetery in Cameron, Milam Co., Texas on 25 Jan 1948.

I can imagine that the death of her youngest child was a hard thing to bear for my great grandmother Della. My father remembers that she kept a memorial paper doll cut out of Minnie Nell that was lacquered & stood up on a little stand on a table in her living room. In one photo I have of Della & her second husband Ed Schostag, a copy of the portrait that appears here & on her headstone is shown in the background on the wall behind them. Minnie Nell may have gone before her time, but she is not forgotten. I close with her obituary:

Obituary of Minnie Nell Houston

Sources:
"Texas, Birth Certificates, 1903-1935," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-1942-23640-24417-68?cc=1803956 : accessed 26 May 2014), 005035193 > image 2710 of 3619; citing State Registrar Office, Austin.
"Texas, Deaths, 1890-1976," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/K3XC-ZD6 : accessed 26 May 2014), Minnie Nell Houston, 25 Jan 1948; citing certificate number 1942, State Registrar Office, Austin; FHL microfilm 2218829.
Obituary, The Waco News Tribune, 29 Jan 1948, pg 14, Minnie Nell Houston