A Typhus epidemic afflicted children in the Smith household. Each child recovered without complications, except young Joseph. He wrote, ®…the disease removed and ascended into my left leg and ankle and terminated in a fever sore of the worst kind.®
The doctors recommended amputation, but Mother Smith refused. Joseph consented to trying an experiment by removing a large portion of bone, but instead of being bound during the operation, Joseph said, ®I will have my father sit on the bed and hold me in his arms.®
The surgeons operated ®by boring into the bone of his leg, first on one side of the bone where it was affected, then on the other side, after which the broke it off with a pair of forceps or pincers.®
I cannot imagine the courage of Joseph or his father. What a special relationship that he need only for his father to hold him and he would endure.
I want to be the kind of a parent that my children will hold to during hardship, and the kind of daughter that will hold to my Father when times are tough.
