Where we end up

Samuel Urlich Green, a distant cousin was born November 27, 1868 in Mt. Zion, Georgia. His father, grandfather and brother were physicians. I don't know much about him except that he died young, at age 23, over 2200 miles from home.

I was recently given a family history written by his mother in the late 1890s. She listed names, dates of birth and dates of death for 4 generations of the Green family. The only person with a cause of death was for her son Samuel. She said he died of consumption at Buckman Springs, San Diego, California.

I looked up the name Buckman Springs and found it was a stage coach stop that the city of San Diego used as a sanatorium for folks with tuberculosis. The city was too wet and foggy so they sent the sick out into the nearby dessert and the patients lived in tents next to the stage coach stop. A story in the April 1958 Quarterly of the San Diego Historical Society said there were 10 to 12 tents for patients and some of them had been sent out west after contracting the illness, with the belief they would be better off in the dry hot climate.

I don't know if Samuel Green moved to California for his health or wealth but he died on February 27, 1892. He was buried in Los Angeles, apparently in an unmarked grave in the Rosedale cemetery. Samuel never married or had children but his brother named one of his sons after him several years after he died and that name was carried on for 3 more generations in their family.