He seemed to fear death. He seemed to think of death as he had seen dear Hebe, cold and still and hearing and seeing nothing. "Cover me up Ma, else I'll get my dess [death] of cold. I wish I could get better," [he said.] When it suddenly occurred to me to tell him, the night before he died, that dear little Hebe wasn't a bit as he was in the study [where he was laid out] but could hear and see and speak and was happy [in heaven]...I thought I couldn't do wrong if I described [heaven] to him in a way to make it most pleasing to his imagination, and spoke of us all meeting him there and never being parted again. After a while in which he seemed to be listening very intently he turned his little head to me, put his loving little arm about my neck and said in a tone I shall never to my dying day forget, "I wish I was dead, Annie."

He died in Dear Momma's arms.. .even when his little hand was stiffening in the cold clasp of death he tried to rub Momma's with it. It is very, very hard to think that he can never fondle us again. Dear little creatures, they were very fond of each other and always together and in death they were not divided.

Your loving sister,
Anna¹⁵

Three years later, in 1864, Annie Smith died of diphtheria too. She was 24 years old. She was buried with another brother, Charles Edward, who died at the same time.

Norman Duncan, Notre Dame Bay, About 1900

Norman Duncan was a Canadian writer who wrote books and magazine articles about Newfoundland. He wrote this in a magazine article in 1901 after a trip to Notre Dame Bay:

When we stepped ashore, an old fisherman with seven children tagging after him came down to greet us.

"Good even, sir."

"Good evening."

"Be you a doctor, sir?"

"No, sir."

"No? Isn't you? Now, I though maybe you might be." Disappointment first showed in his voice when he said, "But you isn't, you says."