Death of a Nine Year Old Boy

I called this afternoon (May 14th, 1906) upon a lady who buried a nine-year-old boy two weeks ago. The child had been operated upon for appendicitis some two or three years ago, and had had peritonitis at the same time. He recovered, and was apparently quite well for a time. Again he was taken sick, and from the first the doctor thinks he did not expect to get well. He was taken to the hospital, and operated upon. He was perfectly rational, recognizing his parents, the doctor, and the nurse, after coming out from under the influence of the anaesthetic [sp]. Feeling that he was going, he asked his mother to hold his hands, until he should be gone. He had, I forgot to say, been given strong stimulants after the operation, which, I suppose, made his mind very active.

Soon he looked up and said, “Mother, dear, don’t you see little sister over there?”

“No, where is she?”

“Right over there. She is looking at me.”

Then the mother, to pacify him, said she saw the child. In a few minutes, his face lighted up full of smiles, and he said:—

“There comes Mrs. C— (a lady of whom he was very fond who had died nearly two years before), and she is smiling just as she used to. She is smiling and wants me to come.”

In a few moments:—

“There is Roy! I’m going to them. I don’t want to leave you, but you’ll come to me soon, won’t you? Open the door and let them in. They are waiting for me outside,” and he was gone.

No, I forgot to tell about his grandmother. I gathered the impression that he did not know his maternal grandmother, but may be wrong.

As his mother held his hands, he said: “How small you are growing. Are you still holding my hands? Grandma is larger than you, isn’t she? There she is. She is larger, isn’t she? Her hand is larger than yours. She is holding one hand and her hand is larger than yours.

Remember that the boy was but nine years old. Did he really see spirits and recognize them? Or was it the result of the highly sensitive conditions of the brain caused by the medicine?

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[Below: Comments by Dr. James H. Hyslop (1907, A.S.P.R. Psychologist & not the doctor attending the boy.)]

The mother confirms this narrative and inquiry brings out the following facts. The boy had never known his grandmother who had died twenty years ago. His sister had died four years before his own birth. Roy is the name of a friend of the child and he died about a year previous.

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Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, (New York: Volume 1, 1907), p. 47-48.