Signolia Haley

The daughter of George Emmett Haley and Jennie Adams, Signolia Haley was only ten years old when she died of diphtheria in 1914. By 1920, her mother had returned home to southwest Virginia, a widow with seven children — six girls and a boy. She died of tuberculosis in 1927; her daughter Katheleen had succumbed to the same illness earlier that year. Of the other children we’ve been able to trace, five migrated north, to New York and Pennsylvania, where Alma also died of tuberculosis, in 1933. Perhaps the saddest fate, though, was reserved for Magnolia (possibly Signolia’s twin), who was confined in Harrisburg State Hospital (known as Pennsylvania State Lunatic Hospital until 1937) for at least twenty years, until her death in 1950.