Death of Mrs Renstrom

Caroline (Carrie) Petersen Renstrom Died of Bright's Disease.
Bright's Disease: now known as acute or chronic nephritis; kidney disease. It is very painful.
It is interesting how different sources can give you different and sometimes conflicting information. Take these two newspaper articles for example. From the first we learn the following:


Salt Lake Herald - July 17, 1907
- She went by Carrie at least sometimes
- Her husband A. P. (Andrew Pehrson) Renstrom was a bishop
- She was also an active member of the church as president of the Young Ladies' Mutual Impovement Association (Young Women's President)
- She is survived by her husband (so he lived beyond 1907)
- She is survived by seven children
- She has living brothers and sisters
- She was 47 years old (est: born 1860)
- A well liked citizen
- Died at 8 AM Yesterday (est: died July 16, 1907)
- Died in Huntsville
- Died of heart trouble that she had been suffering from for a while
- She was operated on for this heart problem a few months prior but never fully recovered
- When the funeral will be
- She will be buried in Huntsville

This is quite a lot of information! Now lets check another paper.
This one is from Odgen, the local newspaper for Huntsville as well and see what this can tell us. This article was printed two days later.



Odgen Standard - July 19, 1907
- Died of Bright's Disease which she had been battling for a while
- Husband is a bishop
- Died in Huntsville
- Died early yesterday morning (est: died July 18, 1907)
- Was operated on two months ago because of the Bright's Disease
- She appeared to be recovering very well
- Daughter of Soren Peterson
- Born in Huntsville July 29 1864 (est: died 10 days short of 43rd birthday)
- She had 10 children, seven are still alive in 1907
- Husband and many relatives still alive in 1907
- A well liked citizen
- Active church member

It is very interesting to see how various records can differ on the information they can provide you. Both sources are valuable in what they do tell us, but on the conflicting information, how do we learn which is correct. We must look for yet another source. Let's see what her death certificate can teach us.



Caroline Peterson Renstrom death certificate filed July 20, 1907
- Caroline Renstrom white female died in Huntsville
- Born July 29, 1864
- Age 42 yrs, 11 mo, 17 days
- Died July 16, 1907
- Born in Huntsville
- Father: Soren L. Petersen born in Denmark
- Mother: Anna Nilsen born in Denmark
- Married, but no spouse name listed
- A. P. Renstrom of Huntsville was the death certificate informant
- Buried in Huntsville on July 20, 1907
- She was attended by a physician for the month prior to her death
- Chief cause of death was Heart Failure and Dropsy (congestive heart failure)
- She had been suffering with this for 90 days
- Contributory cause was Bright's Disease
- She had been suffering with this for 3 years

This clears up some of our questions:
- She had been suffering from both Heart Disease and Bright's Disease, both contributing to her death
- We have learned her true death date and age at death
- The newspapers gave us her husband's name and valuable information on her children
- The death certificate gave us her parents' names and birth places

You can see that the more sources you find, the more you can learn the truth about someone. Each source is a clue, a puzzle piece that gives us a little bit, but when put together we begin to see a much clearer picture. Not only did these sources clear up the details of her death, they opened more doors of places to search for other family members to link together.






When I do family history work, I truly do feel like a detective and I am very driven to find another way in if my pathway gets blocked. My mind speeds through all the possibilities and I try each one until I have a crack in the wall to work my way thorugh. I love this work and I learn to love the people I research as well. It is like they are alive again. I find myself mourning for them when I discover they lost a child and when they die. I see a lifetime of pain and hardship in only a short amount of time and it is difficult to see how they survived it. I am strengthened by their examples. The hard work they did to help each other and to better the community. The inner strength they had to carry on despite the difficulties they faced. They are our families and we are a part of them. A part of this legacy.