Sorely Tested by an Epidemic -- A Family Tragedy

**Snow Hill Cemetery in Quincy, PA. A Gloomy Day in a Gloomy Place**

Covid-19 is not the first pandemic to kill millions. The Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918 sickened upwards of 500 million people with as many as 100 million dying. The Black Plague in the 1350’s killed up to 200 million, probably many more. Mosquito borne disease kills more people annually than those who die from acts of violence—upwards of 600,000 per year. Humans are highly vulnerable to the countless viruses which stalk us.

These statistics are sobering, but rather impersonal—until you factor in Covid. You, the reader, may have had a severe case. You may know of someone who fell gravely ill. Or you may even know of (or know personally) someone who died from Covid. News accounts speak of families who lost several members without being able to say “goodbye” due to enforced isolation—a tragic thing.

We have now lived through a pandemic. So did most of our ancestors. There have been countless localized epidemics throughout the course of human history which sickened or killed many in their community. The disease hits, and then disappears as quickly as it came on. What follows is an account of a family tragedy in which a diphtheria epidemic struck a small community near Waynesboro, Pennsylvania, in the Fall of 1862.

Occasionally, family historians uncover long forgotten life stories and secrets of their ancestors. Truth be told, many of us are looking for ancestral ties to royalty, or we want to add someone famous to our family tree. At times, we do find embarrassing information about our kin, or we discover a notorious ancestor. And there are times which our research uncovers a long forgotten family tragedy—in this case, the death of five children within days of each other from the 1862 diphtheria epidemic, a grim reminder that ours is a fallen race.

John Riddlesberger III was my first cousin, five times removed. From what we know of him, he was well respected though his life was rather unremarkable (see his death notice below). He was born in March of 1813 in Tomstown, PA (near the present day village of Quincy). He died in November of 1887. John lived through the Civil War, and may have witnessed elements of the Confederate army marching to the northeast through Waynesboro, PA on their way to their fate at the crossroad town of nearby Gettysburg. John was a farmer, a blacksmith (which, along with gunsmithing, was the family trade), and the inventor of a lifting machine, for which he filed a patent. He married Elizabeth Hartman in 1838, a fellow member of the German Baptist Brethren—derisively called “Dunkers” by outsiders. John’s headstone tells us of his true calling—Minister of the Gospel.

John and Elizabeth are buried in the Snow Hill cemetery (German Baptist) next to his parents, John Riddlesberger II (1770-1844) and Elizabeth (nee Secrist) who was born in 1771, and died in 1857. Sadly, next to John III and Elizabeth are the graves of eight of their ten children.

According to John’s descendants (who stayed in the Waynesboro area for several generations),

John Riddlesberger III, “bought the farm (owned by his father) . . . and continued to reside there farming and preaching.” He and wife Elizabeth, were members of the Seventh-Day Baptist Church—the famous “Snow Hill” off-shoot of the German Baptist Church—which flourished in the area during the early 1800's, having been founded by Conrad Biessel and then headed by the eccentric Brethren elder, George Martin. John Riddlesberger III was elected to preach here in 1845, and according to his grandson, Henry Riddlesberger, John “served this church until he died at 74 years in 1887. Of the ten children born to the family, only two, Lydia and Isaac, survived to adulthood.

In the opening phase of my family research, I discovered that a list of those buried in the Snow Hill cemetery was available on line. I saw the names of the Riddlesberger children, noticed their death dates, thought it all very tragic, and made a mental note to visit Snow Hill when we planned a family vacation to see several nearby Civil War battlefields and Washington DC. But it was not until I saw first-hand the row of the Riddlesberger children’s headstones, that I realized the scale of what John and Elizabeth had endured—the death of eight of their ten children, five from a sudden and decimating viral plague.

When we arrived at the cemetery, the family got out as I went to park the car up the road. Our youngest son was walking the rows of headstone in the small, rural Snow Hill cemetery. He looked startled and came running back toward the car. I thought he had seen a reptilian critter or a massive arachnid. As he got close he exclaimed, “dad, dad, there are dead Riddlesbergers all over the place.“ We chuckled. But he was right, there are twelve of my distant relatives buried here.

I like to remember these distant relatives, lest they be completely forgotten by us, even if they are well-known unto the Lord. The oldest of the Riddlesberger children, Lydia Ann Riddlesberger, was born on April 3, 1838. She later married, had children, and died in 1893. But the next three of the Riddlesberger children died quite young from unspecified causes. Jacob was born on January 21, 1840, and died on January 16, 1850. He was nearly ten. John Riddlesberger IV, was born on December 19, 1841. He died at age three on July 12, 1845. Two year old Abraham, was born on June 12, 1846, and died October 13, 1848. We do not know what took these children. But it must have a been a hard providence for Christian parents. Another son, Isaac, was born April 5, 1844. He lived a long, and full life, marrying, having several children, establishing a successful business before dying on August 15, 1917. If you ever meet a “Riddlesberger,” they are a descendant of Isaac Riddlesberger of Waynesboro.

I cannot image what this family endured. Of the first five children born to John and Elizabeth, three had died, two survived. But John and Elizabeth had five more children, all of whom tragically died in that terrible Fall of 1862. Diphtheria is easily spread. It presents with fever and swollen glands, before it produces a toxin which effects respiration, the nervous system, and which can attack various organs (heart and kidneys). Without modern treatment it is deadly. We now vaccinate our children against it. This epidemic was localized to Franklin County, but wide-spread in the community. As recounted by the docent at the Waynesboro Historical Society, it was part of the community memory that just as soon as one child took ill and the doctor told the parents there was nothing he could do, another child was coming down with a fever. As the story goes, it was not uncommon for parents to bury a child, only to discover upon returning home from the funeral, that another child had fallen ill, making another funeral likely days hence. No doubt, parents must have been terrified at the first sign of any illness—especially a fever.

The five Riddlesberger children who died of diphtheria were: Samuel, who was born on January 30, 1853, and died at age nine on September 15, 1862—probably the first of the children to die; Daniel, was born on March 1, 1848, and at age fourteen, died the next day on September 16, 1862; Joseph (twin brother of Daniel), was born March 1, 1848, and died three weeks after his brother on October 8, 1862; Elizabeth, was born January 30, 1855, and she died at eight years of age on September 18, 1862; finally, there was David, born on October 12, 1850, and who died at age twelve on September 19, 1862. A family and its future was virtually wiped out. Only their headstones remain to remind us of what happened.

The row of the heavily weathered headstones of the eight Riddlesberger children (see the picture below) makes for a poignant sight. I was stirred to wonder, “just how did the Riddlesbergers endure such a horrible tragedy?” The answer is that they were Christians, so they knew the hope of the resurrection and the comfort of knowing their children are in the proverbial “better place.” Yet, it is a truism that parents should not bury their children—especially eight times. Surely, their faith was repeatedly tested. But they had no where else to go but cling to God’s mercy to sustain them. He did, as John kept preaching and was beloved by his congregation until his own death in 1887, twenty-five years later. No doubt, Job spoke for them at each of those eight funerals (1:21) “The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.”