Shakin' the Family Tree

to me #4 reads like "would you prefer that i come and handle things myself instead of leaving it to you?"

in my family people rarely travelled long distances for funerals, especially if there wasn't a family or friend's home to stay at (and since all of mattie's furniture had already been shipped to minnie, there would not have been a place to stay). motels didn't really exist as we know them. that may have been the circumstnaces he meant. (i have zero records of anyone travelling more than 25-30 miles for a funeral in any of my lines until much much later, fwiw.)

1930 was a year into the great depression, which may have complicated matters.

i hear you on you would be there like a shot, but there's an infrastructure now that makes that possible which wasn't there 86 years ago. my mother and grandparents often talked about how in the 40s you never took a drive without a spare tire, and most of the time you needed it. that was for a drive to the lake or a sunday drive to the country, not interstate travel.

i kind of wonder if the weather may weakened mattie. iirc, the end of march was a terrible blizzard in chicago, then the beginning of april they had temps in the 90s. and just a couple days before her death, there was that freakish temperature drop, where it went from the 90s to the 50s in an hour in chicago.