Apparently you can.
I read a New York Times article about this a couple of weeks ago. Apparently a recent study showed that your odds of having a heart attack are 21 times higher the day after a loved one dies.
This reminded me of my second great-grandfather’s brother, Valentine Scheiber. He dropped dead at the funeral of a friend on a hot day in Chicago in June 1906. He was only 53.
I also have a 60-year-old husband who died a week after his wife. The obituary from the [Albert Lea, Minnesota] Evening Tribune on 7 August 1907 (page 1, column 1) said:
Ole Hageness died at his home on Oak Street shortly after 6 o’clock Tuesday evening of typhoid pneumonia. He had been ill for several weeks, and the sudden death of his wife at Fargo last Tuesday seemed to break him down completely.
Now, Ole was pretty sick to begin with…but wow. What a tough week that must have been for the six grown children he left behind.
Do you have stories like this in your family tree?
Photo by Sister72
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
My great-gandfather died less than a month after my great-grandmother. My dad said he was healthy up before she died but had to move into a nursing home about a week after she died. My dad said it was like he just gave up.
Apparently, I do! I discovered an ancestor and his wife who both died on the same day. Assuming it was an accident of sorts, I investigated further. They were 78 and 80 respectively. No foul play, no accident. The man had died at home and upon discovering him the wife collapsed and died as well. How’s that for true love!
I had a brother on my mother’s line who passed away on the train back to his home after attending his sister’s funeral. Very sad. The obituary mentioned that he was ill for a few years before his death, and he had to retire because of it.
Now that you mention it, I think this is a more common scenario than presumed. My mother-in-law’s family had a funeral where this reaction almost turned into a domino effect.
While the effect is admittedly sad for those family members left behind, I think the sweetest story I ever heard on this account was that of a (non-relative) minister who in his later life cared for his stroke-stricken wife for years. The morning she passed, he basically joined her within a matter of hours. Now, that’s a love story!
Many. Apparently it’s not uncommon for a spouse to follow a loved one in death within a year, especially when the wife predeceases the husband. I always compare the death dates of married couples when I am researching, and this phenomenon occurs with startling regularity. One of my aunts died a year to the day after her husband died.
In 1945, near the Battle of the Bulge, in the sleepy dot of a town, Nothum, Luxembourg, my father’s cousins were outside playing after a battle between the US and Germans had calmed down. On March 14th, his 7 yr old cousin Francois was playing with 5 other boys including his older brother Camille (11 years old). Francois picked up what he thought was a toy, but was actually a small colorful bomb, and Camille begged him to put it down. Frustrated, Francois threw it down, killing himself, and two other playmates. Camille lost his arm and leg. The boys were taken by wheel barrel to the doctors, but it was in vain. Six days later, on March 20, Francois’ distraught grandfather(who lived with him), Jean, 81 years old, but in perfect health dropped dead, of what the family felt was a broken heart. (Camille was never the same – but lived to be a grandfather himself.)
Same here. My aunt and uncle died very soon after each other. It’s almost as if they couldn’t find a reason to be here without their missing piece…
http://saveeverystep.wordpress.com – family stories past and present
I think this is what happened to my great-great grandfather after his wife passed away. I don’t have proof, just a feeling based on information I have. I even alluded to it in a video I made about them: http://youtu.be/cN2Q4awu3xU
Yes, an Aunt died within two years of losing her husband and the family spoke of it as dying of grief.
It’s not hard to imagine.
My dad died one year and 12 days after my mom died. He just gave up after she died. He was my mother’s caregiver for many years and they were always together. People often commented on how they walked hand in hand everywhere. When she was gone he was lost and I truly believe he died of a broken heart.