This story took place in Scranton, Pennsylvania in 1925. My mother was 13 years old at the time. She lived with her sister and her mother. Her married (other) sister had recently given birth to her first child and had developed a serious infection, which required her to remain in the hospital for treatment. The baby was being cared for by my grandmother and my mother and aunt.
One evening, my aunt and grandmother had gone to the hospital to visit my aunt; my mother stayed at home to care for the baby. It was a warm and still September night with no wind or bad weather. The baby was sleeping and my mother was doing her homework.
Suddenly, the window, which was open, began to rattle strongly and the baby began crying uncontrollably. My mother tore pieces of her copybook (the old cardboard kind with the black and white marbled pattern) and packed the pieces between the window and the window frame in an effort to stop the banging. There was no wind that could have caused this. She then held the baby and tried everything possible to calm him to no avail.
She looked at the clock and it was 9:45 p.m. When my aunt and grandmother got home, the next door neighbor said that she received a phone call from the hospital for my grandmother (my grandmother didn't have a phone in her home). My grandmother called the hospital and was told that my aunt had died shortly after my grandmother and aunt had left from their visit. The time of her death was 9:45 p.m.
Did my aunt stop to visit her baby after she died? We'll never know, but this story really did happen.
