The rosary

The family rosary was part of each evening at Lionel and Mary's home. Lyle would keep Mary on her toes, however. Each decade has ten Hail Marys but when Lyle led, sometimes he would stop at five and Mary would say "Lyle"! Then the next time he might continue on with fifteen or so until Mary would again say "Lyle"!

For a class Mom took one time, she had Grandpa make tapes of his memories, then she transcribed them. They're pretty much his wording, but "I" is changed to "James" and such to avoid confusion. This is one of many, so I'll post more as possible.

Lionel (Lyle) Patrick McCarty

In 1926 Lyle’s health got progressively worse. He spent most of the year in bed. The twins did the farming themselves. They took turns taking a year off of school to be full time farmers. Lyle and his father had had every doctor in northwest Iowa. Finally his father called the Mayo Clinic and got ahold of Dr. Runyan. They had to pay him $750 but he came down. Bernadette remembers he flew down and landed in a pasture or hay field at the farm. James remembers his grandpa bringing him to the house in the car. The doctor spent a half hour with Lyle and completely changed his medicine. He started to get better almost immediately but he was never too good. Kidney disease was almost hopeless then.
About 3 weeks before his death he went back to the Mayo Clinic. They told him he would probably live anywhere from two to four weeks. He did get over to Sheldon soon after for a visit, but soon was so sick that he had to stay in bed. Therese was the apple of Lyle’s eye and her death was very hard on him. She was killed on July 23rd and he died August 2nd.

From memories on tapes from Grandpa.