Thomas describes a group of people who fell ill during an epidemic. One young widow and her two children were too sick to leave with the group when it decided to shift camp in search of more food. “But her mother was there,” she writes. “This small, rather elderly woman took her daughter on her back, her infant grandchild in a sling across her chest, and her four year old grandchild on her hip. She carried them thirty-five miles, to her people’s new camp.” The superhuman efforts of this grandmother meant her daughter and two grandchildren recovered from their illness and weren’t left behind.
