Early that year, Florida State Hospital for the Insane admitted 71-year-old William M. Bailey. The only thing hospital staff knew about Bailey was he lived in an adjacent county. 10 months later, he died of the flu in the pandemic. He had contracted it in the hospital and was dead within five days. He was buried in the state hospital cemetery. 49 This William was about a decade older than Mary D.’s son William but similarities to the lives of some of her sons cannot be ignored. Samuel Silas Bailey, “Dixie,” the third child, was born 21 March 1861 in Greenwood village 50 and died in 1923 in a neighboring county. 51 Dixie probably was named for his Hodges grandfather and a Bailey great uncle. 52 Dixie was 10 years old when his father died and 13 years old when his mother died. 53 One of Mary D.’s sisters probably was the principal caregiver for Mary D. and for the children she left. She probably moved into Mary D.’s home when she became ill. After Mary D. died, she stayed on, compensated by the executor of James’s estate, caring for as many of the children for as long as they needed her. In the 1880 census, she was head of a household that included three Bailey children. Two attended school but Dixie did not and could not read or write. The enumerator described him as “ IDIOTIC ” not insane, 54 just as another enumerator described his brother Frank. In 1885 the executor of James’s estate had Dixie committed to the S OUTH C AROLINA L UNATIC A SYLUM . The family doctor who had treated Dixie for many years wrote that he was a “lunatic . . . not dangerous unless provoked but is often noisy or unpleasant to neighbors.” The doctor continued that Dixie was 49 Ancestry, Find A Grave , database with images (http://www.findagrave.com : 29 July 2021), memorial 96868148, William M. Bailey, Florida State Hospital Cemetery, Gadsden County, Florida; Florida death record photograph by L.M. Shiver Thomas. 50 Elliott, Kith and Kin , 104 51 “South Carolina, Death Records, 1821-1965,” certificate no. 11524, Samuel Silas Bailey, 6 July 1923, database with images, Ancestry (http://www.ancestry.com : 15 November 2020), citing South Carolina Department of Archives and History, “South Carolina Death Records, 1925-1949,” Laurens County, Jacks Township. 52 Watson, Greenwood Co. Sketches , 146. 53 “Mrs. Mary D. Bailey,” obituary, p. 164, col. 3. Also, “Brother James A. Bailey,” obituary, p. 24, col. 5. 54 1880 U.S. census, Abbeville County, South Carolina, population schedule, Greenwood Township, p. 49 (penned), enumeration district (ED) 13, dwelling 56, family 56, Samuel Bailey, Mary Bailey and Eugene Bailey in Julia Hodges household; digital image, Ancestry (http://www.ancestry.com : 30 October 2020), citing NARA microfilm publication T9, roll 1217.
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