Violet Lorraine Britton (1931-1932)

Ellen, Violet and Cub Britton
ca. 1931 in Colorado
Courtesy of Ellen Britton

Violet Lorraine Britton, daughter of Clarence and Ellen Britton, was born April 14, 1931 at Ellen's parents home at Dolores, Colorado and died December 31, 1932 at Kim, Colorado, in the new rock house at Kim.

She was named for Ellen's sister "Violet", and "Lorraine" is for a very pretty, sweet girl, that went to parties in the same crowd that Cub and Ellen did before they were married.

She, unlike others in the family, had blonde hair and blue eyes. She died of a nasty variety of the flu at the age of 20 months, which was the same time that Cub (Clarence) almost died of a type of flu.

The type of flu Violet had, caused a brain hemorrhage, which caused her to have convulsions every few minutes from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. When the last convulsion occurred, the spinal column was filled with blood.

One cute thing Ellen remembers about Violet Lorraine: When she was about a year old, she and Ellen went to Missouri to visit Ellen's Reno kin. Ellen had made her a cute dress out of the sash from a dress she had worn while she and Cub were dating.

Violet's new dress was white satin with a lavender bow on the front. She wore lavender socks. She was so proud of her new dress, and went out into the middle of the living room, in front of all the people, and modeled the dress, like a professional model.

She held the skirt out and said, "See? Pretty!"

This story was told to my sister, Kathy, by Violet's mother (our grandmother), Ellen Lovicy Waters Britton.

Kathy added the following:

Cub hemorrhaged at the nose and it was days before he understood, when they told him, that their baby daughter was gone. Some local people laid hands on Cub and prayed for him and, within hours, he was better. When his doctor saw him, he was so much better that the doctor thought Cub was his brother, Walt, because they looked so much alike and the doctor didn't expect him to be better.