A quiet call at the vicarage

(1965 January 13)

From there [beauty parlor] to vicarage to call on Hamiltons. Here I met Father coming from church to house. Inside, Joe Rucenski was doing carpentry work. Mrs. H. put my things on her bed and resumed knitting. We talked. Soon Father came in from the church again. He clung in the doorway between dining room and living room near front door, thumped his chest, complained of pain. Mrs. H. and I got him to sit down and he was very white. After a few minutes he thot he could make it to the bed off living room (I took my coat off the bed) and we each got on one side of him and started, and down he went, heart attack. She put his feet up on a chair and I called Joe, who straightened him out, loosed his belt, took off glasses. I got a cold wet cloth for forehead and Mrs. H. took his pulse. After about 5" he wanted to try for the bed again and Joe and Mrs. H. got him to bed. At first he would not allow the doctor to be called, then consented, and Mrs. H. called Dick Edwards [with office just around the corner]. About that time I decided I had better absent myself from the scene. I put on my things, welcomed and directed Dick, went for my purse, and here was a man from the freight office with 30 barrels of water to store in the basement for Civil Defense, as our church is a Shelter. Well, there was the priest with a heart attack, there was his wife hovering over him, there was the doctor. Upstairs was the carpenter pounding away. And in the basement the men were carting the drums of water. A quiet call, indeed. I found out later we should have kept him in the chair and got the doctor. Inertia is the watchword. I called today and he had more pain.