The Brief Lives of Jeremiah and Jerome Fralick

Jeremy Fralick was born on this day, May 24, in 1850. He was the fourth of ten children of Henry and Martha (Scott) Fralick, born in Bloomington, Grant County, Wisconsin.  As the older brother of my great grandmother, Mary Ellen Fralick, Jeremy was my great grand uncle. Regrettably, young Jeremy died when he was  just 3-1/2 years old, on 27 December 1853.

Jeremy’s older brother, Jerome, died two weeks after that on 11 January 1854. Jerome was the second oldest of the Fralick children, having been born 25 January, 1848 in Bloomington. (The township at that point was actually called “Tafton” but soon after was changed to Bloomington.) At the time of his death, Jerome was exactly two weeks short of his sixth birthday.

The close proximity of the time of their deaths suggested the possibility of a disease that cost both boys their lives. I have not yet found a document listing an official cause of death, but did discover there was a cholera epidemic in Wisconsin from 1849 – 1854. Maybe that was the culprit, maybe something else. Whatever the cause, both boys missed out on the opportunity to grow up and their family missed the opportunity to share long lives with them.