SIGHTLESS SONGSTER
Part 1
Spring had sprung in rural upstate New York. The Hudson river recently released
from the prison of winter meandered a melancholy path to the ocean. Over rural
New York’s open meadows, butterflies flitted in delightful abandon,
and birds sang their soulful lyrics to the wind.
In a one story country home in Putnam County, New York, John and Mercy Crosby
nursed their sick baby— Frances Jane. The little one moaned listlessly,
her eyes, red and inflamed, seemed to protrude out of her face. Barely six
weeks old, she had acquired a vicious infection. The Crosby family physician
was out of town, but a man purporting to be his assistant came and applied
hot mustard poultices to her eyes. The treatment was worse than the disease
and Fanny was blinded for life. The man, who was in fact not a physician,
fled town. The town doctor, upon his return, pronounced Frances Jane blind.
Offering no cure, he said, “Perhaps, The specialist in New York have
something to help her”; other physicians concurred. Firmly believing
that God could restore sight to their blind daughter’s eyes, the Crosbys
prayed daily that Fanny would see.
Watching anxiously for some sign of the hoped-for miracle, they waited and
waited, but it was not to be, Frances Jane remained blind.
In quiet moments, the Crosbys worried aloud, “What would become of Fanny?
What future was there for a blind girl?” There were times when it seemed
dreadful, unstated fears seized their hearts with icy grip. “Little
Fanny was blind, but she was theirs and, Oh, such a delightful child.”
Although New York city seemed faraway, they thought and planned for the day
when they could take Fanny to the New York eye doctors. Again, that was not
to be, when Fanny was nearly one-year-old, tragedy struck! John suddenly and
unexpectedly became violently ill. He died, leaving Mercy, at the age of twenty-one
the sole provider for the family: Fanny, her two older sisters and a brother.
To support the family, Mercy took a job as a maid. Eunice Crosby, John’s
mother, moved into the small house in which the family lived and became a
mother both to her youthful daughter-in-law and to her grandchildren. The
house, a modest cottage in a quiet little glen, was bordered by a gurgling,
babbling brook and open fields where children played.
The Crosbys were blessed with kind neighbors who helped the struggling family
in every way they could.
To be continued