Georgie Barrows
On June 6th, 1959, George “Georgie” Baylor Barrows was born, completing our family of four.
When he was about 1 1/2 years old, he began having fevers that would come and go. One Saturday Georgie’s fever spiked alarmingly high, so I called the pediatrician. At the time, there were no Saturday facilities available, so I had to wait to take him to the hospital on Monday.
At the hospital, his fever was so high they placed him in the ICU on an ice mattress in an effort to bring it down. They allowed me to stay with him as he received a blood transfusion, but sadly, it did not help. By Wednesday, my parents demanded answers. A blood specialist was called, and we were given the heartbreaking diagnosis: Georgie had leukemia.
On Saturday, just one week after his alarmingly high fever, the doctor came in and told us to take him home, saying: “We are put on this earth to make our loved ones as comfortable as possible.”
We tried everything at our disposal to treat our young child. My parents belonged to a natural food group and contacted a chiropractor, Dr. Cruse Howe, that specialized in this type of illness. He put Georgie on a special diet and a kind woman from the food group lent me her juicer so that I could prepare his food. He responded so well that we began to hope he was recovering.
“We tried everything at our disposal to treat our young child.”
Sadly, that hope was short-lived. On our daughter Melonie’s fifth birthday, Georgie became very agitated and was so symptomatic that I knew we had to take him to the chiropractor. That day, while holding Georgie on my shoulder, he took his last breath.
My parents picked me up and brought me to their home where my husband, George, joined me. He held our little boy and told him about all the things they were going to do together. His grief was so overwhelming that we ended up having to call an ambulance for him.
As you might imagine, this journey was very hard on our older child Melonie as well, as she did not understand what was happening, being so young herself. In the days that followed Georgie’s passing, I made it a point to take her trick-or-treating as I felt she had suffered enough.
It was very hard to go on as a family. We each mourned in our own way. I leaned on a close friend who let me talk for hours; my husband often sat at the cemetery for long stretches of time. Life was never the same, but we did go on to live a full, wonderful life.
In August 1962, we welcomed another daughter, Beth Ann. I stayed busy leading 4-H groups for our girls, and George mentored young boys, teaching them to drive and repair cars and trucks. Over the years our family grew to include 4 grandchildren and 6 great grandchildren, and my husband and I celebrated 65 years of marriage before he passed just shy of his 85th birthday.
It is a wonderful honor for me to contribute to Paige’s Childhood Cancer Fund and St. Jude’s in Georgie’s loving memory, with hopes that progress will continue to be made to help sick children.
