In the Jan. 4, 2010, Joplin Globe there as an article about “germs” and how to protect oneself from them.
My great-grandpa, stet Moses Branton, was a drummer boy in the North Carolina Infantry in the Civil War. When the war was over, he was in Blue Springs, Mo. He married the daughter of the local undertaker, sired seven children, and lived there for the rest of his life.
My mother was his granddaughter. She said he loved to tell stories about his experiences in the Confederate Army — about marching all night in the rain, spending the night in a farmhouse where the farmer’s wife spent the night drying out the soldiers’ boots at the fireplace, and eating parched corn out of his coat pocket, when that was all he had to eat for several days.
But whenever anyone brought up the subject of “germs,” grandpa always declared there were no such things as germs. If there had been, everyone who fought in the Civil War would have died of germs instead of enemy bullets.
Well, maybe grandpa knew something about germs that no one else knew. He outlived his wife and three of his daughters and died at the ripe old age of 84.
He is buried in the Blue Springs cemetery.
Joan Wheeler Davenport
Joplin
Opinion
Voices: Outsmarting germs
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