That fearful scourge, small-pox, has nearly decimated a whole family named Vielbieg.. .near Mount Bethel, N.J. The family consisted of husband, wife and eight children. The mother first contracted the disease, where, it is not known, and died with it. Following her, the children one after another died until only two were left, and one of them is not expected to recover. The eldest boy, aged about l9, is an apprentice in the harness making business at Newark, and not being home at the time did not contract the disease. The father is well nigh crazy with grief and requires constant watching to prevent him from taking his life, he having threatened to do so. Our Board of Health [in Plainfield], with characteristic promptness, sent to the scene the fumigator engaged to disinfect our city hospital, and that gentleman has disinfected the house of the afflicted family so that the neighbors may now venture there and render what assistance they can. How or by whom the bodies of the victims were buried we have not learned. [The Plainfield Constitutionalist, April 11, l872. The Central Jersey Times, which also carried the story, added that "the husband had to bury his wife, unaided and alone, and...a man was employed to bury two of the children in one grave but got drunk and made terrible work of the burial."] According to Township records, the mother's name was Mary and her children, who ranged in age from 18 months to 15 years, were Catherine, George, Mary, Augustus, William and Louisa. The Vielbigs were buried in Berkeley Heights, in the cemetery behind St. Mary's Church on Plainfield Ave. |