Fret Not; It's Good: Sue Henry's Final Days Open Access

Stephens, Katherine Robinson (2011)

Permanent URL: https://etd.library.emory.edu/concern/etds/0v8380922?locale=en
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Abstract

Fret Not; It's Good: Sue Henry's Final Days
By Katherine Stephens


This honors thesis in American Studies is a form of a woman's life history and memoir. The
subject is Sue McLaurin Henry, a camp director in Mentone, Alabama, the story of her last two
weeks of life, and what that time revealed about the rest of her life. During the last two weeks of
Sue Henry's life, I was compelled to turn on a recorder to capture some of our conversations and
those of others in the community of women who were caring for her. I worked with roughly
twenty-two hours of recordings. Several short transcribed segments of these conversations are
presented within the text of the paper. The chapters of this thesis are organized around three scenes from Sue Henry's last days. The
first is a good-bye with an old friend who had come to visit Sue in her hospital room in Jackson,
MS; the second takes place in Henry's cabin in Mentone, AL, where her sister, my aunt and my
cousin were caring for her with the help of Hospice; and the third is an informal worship service
we held on the last Sunday of her life sitting around her bed.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents


Preface

INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………...2

CHAPTER

I. VISITING SUE………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..19

II. THE QUOTIDIAN DETAILS OF A GOOD DEATH……………………………………………………………………45

III. WORSHIP……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..71

EPILOGUE…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..84

BIBLIOGRAPHY……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………86

Appendix A………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….88

Appendix B………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….93

Appendix C………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….96

Appendix D………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….98

Appendix E…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..99

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