August, 1953

Daniel Guerra had finally gotten his discharge from the Navy...He came home to San Jose, California and met a really nice girl named Sally, who had come up north with her sister to work at the cannery...Dan and Sally met at a local dance. She wasn't sure she liked him at first, he had a moustache!...but he offered to buy her a soda, which she thought was nice....
His father Louis hadn't been feeling well, but it was no big deal...in those days, you get sick, you just shake it off, and it will go away. But Louis' cough got worse and worse...he would cough up blood.
It became clear that he had Tuberculosis, a lung/bronchial disease, or more precisely an inflammation......which was treatable at the time, but Louis stayed in bed and insisted that he would be fine...
Now that his eldest son Daniel was home, all was well, especially since there were still two younger sons and two rather pugnatious teenage daughters at home, and his poor wife who could only worry...
One night, after his coughing spells seemed to stop, he seemed okay.
"Hey papa, you want me to leave this door open for ya?"
"No, can you close the door?..."
And that night, Louis Guerra died in his own bed. He was only 47.
His wife was distraught....Two months later, as she laid in a hospital bed, sick from pneumonia, or probably what can be described as Dying from a Broken Heart.
She said to her oldest son, "Your dad is coming for me on a white horse."
And that night, SHE died...
Poor young Daniel, 23 years old and left to care for the household.