Louisa asked:

Does anyone have any idea what Wooly’s illness was and what his medicine was? What about Sarah’s pink pills?

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3 years ago
5 answers

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Judith Wooly couldn't make it in school, or even recite the Gettysburg Address, so maybe he had an undiagnosed learning disability that led to extreme anxiety or a break with reality (ie. being old enough to drive a fire truck but thinking someone forgot it & he needed to return it to a station??!) He didn't fit in with his high functioning, competitive family, so they just doped him up with laudanum. Sarah would have needed Valium to cope with "Dennis"!

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Karen I assumed it was laudanum, an opiate. I've read historical fictions going back as far as the Civil War era, and doctors were prescribing it freely for people's nervous conditions.

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Pat In my opinion, Woolly suffered from arrested development (psychological development that is not complete) when he was around the age of 7 yrs old due to the tragic death of his Father which occurred at that time. One of Woolly's relatives actually says something like since his Father's death, he hasn't been the same.

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