Family secrets...

I've been having a great time perusing the scans of documents that have recently been put up on FamilySearch.org.  Out of curiosity, I looked up one of my ancestors.  According to stories I heard from the family, he'd died of the flu in 1919 (I'd always assumed he was caught up in the major pandemic).  But I could never figure out why his place of death was nowhere near where he and his family lived.  I think I've found the answer.

He didn't die of influenza.  He died of "exhaustion of acute mania" in an insane asylum, after being there for just over two weeks.  I suppose mental illness was one of those things that wasn't talked about back at that time.  I have my doubts as to whether anyone other than his wife even knew the truth; perhaps it was just easier for her to tell her children that their father had gotten ill with the flu and died.

It's a good illustration of why we need to be skeptical about stories that are passed down orally.  There are plenty of things that people might want to hide.  Unfortunately, unless we can find written records to determine what's actually true, these stories will keep getting passed along as the truth.