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Show saw her tray slide from her lap as she slumped and drew her last breath. John K was speechless. What he saw could not be real. Surely it was all a bad dream. But he gradually comprehended that the traumatic happenings of the moment were very real indeed, and that his Katie was actually gone. Her funeral and burial were in Mt. Pleasant, 6 April 1905. The baby's name had been previously selected and after his wife died, John K decided that the infant should also have her mother's name in its shortened version. So Katie Aleen was the name given to his new daughter. Katie's mother (Ann Maria Draper Whitlock Clinger) was concerned about her daughter's family and offered to take the baby home to care for her. A better word would be to save her, for Aleen had nursed long enough to suffer the effects of the medicines Katie had taken, which had damaged the lining of the baby's stomach. Any milk, even goat's milk , offered to her was rejected by her weakened organ. There were no babyfood formulas available then and the baby grew consistently weaker. Sometimes it was necessary for the grandmother to hold a mirror close to the baby's tiny face to detect any sign of breath vapor. The heartbeat, pulse, or normal baby breathing were all so undetectable that the mirror provided the only clue to life in the child. Finally, in desperation, the grandmother mixed a weak solution of Eagle Brand condensed milk and water, and fed it to the baby, drop by drop, until she slowly began to gain strength enough to suck on a bottle nipple. 82 |