Jervis McEntee Diaries

Sunday May 29, 1887

Jervis McEntee Diary Entry, May 29, 1887, from the Jervis McEntee papers, 1850-1905, in the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution

Sunday, May 29, 1887 After working all forenoon in my studio with my feet damp from going over through the wet grass I came home and made a fire in the sitting room and dried my feet. I laid down on the lounge for a while and when I got up noticed a lack of control in my legs. The same feeling occurred in the evening but by walking about it disappeared. After writing in my diary in my room the same sensation occurred when I got up but more particularly through my whole left side. This morning it was still there. At breakfast I was so bad I could not lift my hand to my head and could not rise from my chair. Sara had to support me to the sitting room. I am better since but walk with great difficulty and have that numbness in my left arm and leg which I fear is paralysis. Sara thinks it is the result of a cold. I awoke in the night of Saturday in a violent chill not having enough cover on me and then walking with my feet wet yesterday she says accounts for it, but I am alarmed and wish I could be sure it is only temporary. I wrote a letter to Booth today in which I told him all my troubles and asked him to let me have $3,000 between Sept. and Feb which I will send as soon as I know where to address him. I told him about my sale and would pay him from that. I said nothing about this alarming attack.

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