The influence of grief on the deceased

- 20 - Most honourable Mr. Rittmann, Rudolf, Graz In answer to your kind letter from the 19 th of this month I would like to tell the honourable Mr. Rittmann the following. The death of my beloved husband was a bitter blow for myself and my children. He died in Rabarnaska in Russia on the 8 th of August 1916 from a grenade. I think of the poor man every day with tears in my eyes. He left a widow with 5 children behind. There were 8, but 3 have died. My husband received a small silver medal after he died and I would like to ask for advice about whether I am entitled to an allowance. I have a small farmhouse, grow vegetables but I had to sell everything in spite of this; to have lost the provider for the family is a bitter blow for me. But all mourning is in vain, all I want to do is to pull the children though as best as I can. Three of the children are not provided for, the two older ones are in service with my relatives. Would there be a possibility to received further assistance from some source through your endeavour and kindness. I would be eternally grateful to you. I am indeed a little too lowly to find the right way. Repeating my request most submissively, I close most respectfully Hedwig Haas.’ This was a registered letter with the number Murau 754. As Lieutenant Rittmann had to return to the front, he handed the case to Professor Walter. He in turn looked after the poor widow, he made the necessary petitions to the authorities and this succeeded. The widow thanked him in a letter on the 19 th of August 1917: ‘Esquire! I humbly inform you that your esteemed petition has been successful and I express my thousandfold gratitude to you and to Mr. Lieutenant Rittmann on behalf of myself and my children. The board of trustees of the Styrian Widow’s War Fund allocated me 50 Kronen. May I ask you for the address of Mr. Lt. Rittmann so that I can send him the thanks that I owe him. Most sincerely. Widow Hedwig Hass.’” 17. A deceased Mother looks after the Children she left behind A doctor born in Germany, a Dr. Bernhard Cyriax who was a Professor at a medical college in Cleveland, Ohio USA during the second half of the last century, reports about the same kind of case. In his book “How I became a Spiritualist” he narrates the following happening (1, P. 24): “Meetings are held in Boston, at the locality of the ‘Banner of Light’ (a spiritistic journal) three times a week in order to give any spirit that entertains the wish to communicate with those they left behind, the opportunity to vocally communicate their wishes through a ‘personified medium’. These are stenographically written down and then published in the ‘Banner’. It was on a Friday afternoon in 1984, when the spirit of an Irishwoman who died of consumption, manifested herself through the medium (it was Mrs. Conant at the time) and communicated that she felt so terribly unhappy, because both of the children she left behind, eight respectively ten years old, were suffering terribly. She indicated that she had died in a miserable flat in a dead-end street in Albany, in the State of New York and that the authorities had given one of her children into care with a family in Albany and the other with a farmer near town. The one child was forced to beg in the street and was almost starving to death whilst the other was tyrannically treated and cruelly beaten at the slightest trifle. This woman supplied accurate dates and habitations and with heartrending lamentations entreated the chairman to write to a certain Dr. Andrews in Albany, he had treated her during her last few weeks and he seemed to be a very philanthropic, in order to ask him to look after her children. According to this wish, a letter was written that Saturday and sent to Dr. Andrews whose address the spirit had supplied, it contained all the details. The Irishwoman appeared again at the meeting on Tuesday afternoon, she was very happy and she informed them that she now felt happy and content, because the doctor had fulfilled her wish and rescued her children from the hands of their tormentors. She didn’t know how to express her gratitude for the willing help she had received and she asked the grace of heaven to