Go back to reading about the Sulcers’ migration to California.
Once they settled in Riverside, the Sulcers gradually integrated completely into the fledgling community. A.A. went into partnership with two other doctors in town, named Gill and Jenkins. He bought a ranch in nearby Perry, just up over the Box Springs Grade; like many in the town he dabbled in real estate and orange growing as well. Young Henry would remember riding out to the ranch with groups of his parent’s friends, seeing large numbers of eagles soaring along the hills (they would take pot-shots at them).
They had a rich social life. For fun, the family travelled to the hot springs at Temescal, joined in a large Easter excursion to the county seat with the Masonic lodge, went to L.A. for the jamboree of the G.A.R. (Grand Army of the Republic, the veterans group of which A.A. was a proud member). They attended “musicale” evenings at a private home, or went to see touring companies of entertainers at the Loring Theater.
One night, the elders of the town were on stage there themselves for a nostalgic comedy skit about the old “skule” days, when Henry, who would later develop his own love of performing, got to watch his father dressing up as pupil “Boliver Hartshorn” of long ago; his mother joined in the fun as “Patience Sidensteicker”.
Cullen became an athletic teen keenly interested in the new sport of bicycle racing, and even participated in a relay race from L.A. to San Diego with adult riders. Only recently had the “modern” bicycle come into fashion, with the two wheels the same size; still no gears and a minimal brake. Bicycles were still a very hot “new technology” item.
During this time, the Sulcers’ days were happy and full, and the possibilities of their young affluent city must have seemed endless. However, the bliss was only to last for six years.
It was over the Christmas holiday of 1892 when the family’s nemesis, the typhoid, struck again. Before the introduction of clean drinking water, and antibiotics, this fever caused by salmonella bacteria was common around the world and effective prevention and treatment still years away. This time it was 17-year old Cullen who took ill, falling into a high fever. We can imagine the terribly familiar scene: a child slowly fading, the useless medicine, the helpless mother and father, the doctor’s training and experience proven pointless yet again.
Cullen died on the day after Christmas. He was buried a few blocks from the Sulcer home on Almond Street.
I can’t imagine the depths of grief in the household. It surely marked Mary Jane and 10-year old Henry for life, though he rarely spoke of the details. For A.A., his medical profession died along with Cullen – after 30 or more years, he simply found he could no longer consider himself a healer as a man of science. A.A. bitterly wrote,
When I most needed my remedies they failed me utterly. In the moment of extremest necessity they were a mockery and a farce.
A. A. Sulcer
In the grim aftermath of Cullen’s passing, he turned once again to spirituality for solace, this time taking a completely different turn. He had met a faith healer from back East named Emma Stanton Davis, who represented the fastest growing religious movement in the country. This encounter was to change his life.
Go on to read about how A.A. became one of the West Coast leaders of an upstart religious movement.
Sources
- “History of Riverside, California” available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Riverside,_California on 30 August 2012
- Barker, Richard H., “The Building Boom of 1887 induced the Citrus Gold Rush”, Citrus Roots, Jan/Feb 2012, available at http://www.citrusroots.com/citrograph/Jan-Feb-2012.pdf on 4 August 2014
- “Abraham A. Sulcer”, An Illustrated History of Southern California, The Lewis Publishing Co., 1890
- “Hatching Eagles”, Riverside Press and Horticulturalist, 30 May 1891 “Los Angeles to San Diego – All Ready for the Great Relay Bicycle Race”, Los Angeles Herald, 23 July 1892
- “Gritty Relay Bicycle Riders”, Los Angeles Herald, 28 July 1892 “The Deestrict Skule”, Riverside Daily Press, 1 March 1890 “San Bernardino County – Riverside Brevities”, Los Angeles Times, 28 December 1892:7
- “Cullen B. Sulcer – Memorial”, Find-A-Grave, available at http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=Sulcer&GSiman=1&GSsr=41&GRid=7622616& on 16 October 2012
- Sulcer, A.A. “The Science of Christian Science” Christian Science Journal, 1899, available at http://www.cslectures.org/Sulcer/The%20Science%20of%20CS-Sulcer.htm 26 August 2012
