Gust Doyle's 1933 Pennsylvania Death Certificate

Gust is my paternal grandfather, the grandfather I never met.  In fact, he is the grandfather I didn't know I had until I was at least 12 or 14.  My father never spoke about his childhood or his family, possibly because the experience was too painful:  he had an unloving stepmother and his father died when he was just becoming an adult.

Below is the transcription of Gust's death certificate, a certificate I purchased from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania's Department of Health many years ago.  Words in uppercase indicate words filling the blanks in the form.

Certificate of Death, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Department of Health, Bureau of Vital Statistics
1.  Place of Death     County of   MERCER     Registration District No.  400     File No.  89562
Township of  LAKE     Registered No.   30
2.  Full Name   GUST DOYLE
Personal and Statistical Particulars
3.  Sex   MALE
4.  Color or Race   WHITE
5.  Single, Married, Widowed or Divorced   MARRIED
5a.  If married ... husband of   TWILA DOYLE
6.  Date of Birth  NOV. 17, 1888
7.  Age   44 years  10 months  17 days
8.  Occupation of Deceased   FARMER
9.  Birthplace   STONEBORO, PA
10.  Name of Father   WM DOYLE
11.  Birthplace of Father   ENGLAND
12.  Maiden Name of Mother   TRESSA FROMAN
13.  Birthplace of Mother   ORANGEVILLE PA
14.  Informant   MRS GUST DOYLE     Address   STONEBORO PA
15. Filed   OCT 5, 1933     Registrar   E. Ferringer [signature]
Medical Certificate of Death
16.  Date of Death   OCT. 4, 1933
17.  I hereby certify that I attended deceased from   5 -- 18 -- 1933 to OCT  4  1933, that I last saw him alive on OCT  2d, 1933 and that death occurred, on the date stated above, at 7:10 A.m.
The Cause of Death was as follows:   CARCINOMA OF THE SIGMOID....  I attended deceased from 5 - 18 1933 to Oct 4, 1933... last saw him alive on OCT  2d, 1933 ... death occurred at 7:10 a.m.     (duration) 1 yrs.
Contributory   46
18.  Did an operation precede death?   YES     Date of   MAY 18--1933    Was there an autopsy?   NO
Signed G W KAHLE, M.D.     10--5  1933     (Address)   HADLEY PA
19.  Place of Burial     OAK HILL     Date of Burial   OCT 6  1933
20.  Undertaker   A. M. YEAGER [signature]     Address   STONEBORO PA

Comments and Observations

• Gust's wife, the informant, gave his occupation as farmer.  He had also been a coal miner while farming.  Both of them must have identified his primary work as farmer.
  
• The term "sigmoid" here refers to the part of the colon just before the rectum.  Gust died from colon cancer, but he'd had several surgeries including a colonscopy, which may or may not have hastened his death.  A cousin referred to the doctor who did the surgeries as a "butcher," a term probably heard from her mother, my father's half-sister.  Who knows but whether Gust may have survived the cancer, or at least survived longer than a year, if he'd been alive now
• There are several numbers on this certificate that seem out of place:  "400" near the top of the page; "45-12-81" just below that, and "46" on the line for contributory cause of death.  I wondered if they were cause of death codes (ICD), so did some research.  I found that the codes were and continue to be updated every few years.  The 1929 version tells me that code 46 is "Cancer of the digestive organs and peritoneum."  That doesn't seem quite right but the next revision of the ICD is 1938, five years after Gust's death.  None of the other numbers are anywhere close to colon cancer.
  
• The International Codes on Death (or International Causes of Death, I've seen if referred to as both) can be found here at Wolfbane (http://www.wolfbane.com/icd/index.html), where you can find the codes for these years:  1893, 1900, 1909, 1920, 1929, 1938, 1948, 1955, 1965, 1975, and 1990.  The codes are changed or updated about every 10 years or so.
• See Ancestry.com for Pennsylvania Death Certificates, 1906-1967.   You'll need to either have a subscription or have access through a public library.
  

As is true whenever a person dies, many people are affected.  Gust's death was devastating for my father.   His widow was left with five young children and a farm.  And his parents had lost their only son who had been farming the land they purchased to begin farming. 

-–Nancy.

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