<TITLE>20. Par 77-81</TITLE>L-77 I whirled around and got back, come back way down towards New Albany, got in, went up to find my wife. The whole hospital was covered through with...?... with water. And they'd... I thought, "She's drowned and gone." She had Billy Paul back there and Sharon. She was down with double pneumonia. So I ask them, "What become of them?"
They said, "They got on a train and went out in a cattle car."
That sick mother, with a hundred and five fever in a cattle car, and the sleet blowing just as hard as it could across... And then they said, "They went towards Charlestown." And I started out to hit Charlestown. Got my boat and got in there, there was about seven miles of water where a creek had backed up the... broke through this way, and the current coming just as hard as it could come. I tried hour after hour, and I couldn't get that boat to even pierce that--that current. It'd bring me right back around like this again. I tried and tried. And there I come to find out I was marooned out on a island to myself. And there I set for days, thinking all about that backwash, kicked out of other churches.

L-78 When I found her, after the waters went down, and I got to where she was way up at Columbus, Indiana, in a Baptist Hospital, a place, room like this, I went through there screaming at the top of my voice. I was about wild. And I seen her raise up her hand, and there my darling, she'd fell off so much weight, till she didn't--wouldn't weigh over a hundred pounds. That pneumonia had went into tuberculosis, and she was dying.
The intern come, got me, and take me back, said, "Just a minute. Aren't you a friend of Sam Adair?"
I said, "Sam Adair," that's doctor in Jeffersonville, a buddy of mine.

L-79 And he said, "Well, look. Now, we're going to send her to Sam," said, "the girl is going to die." Said, "She just..." Said, "Now, you're a minister, aren't you?"
I said, "Yes, sir."
Said, "Well, you..." Said, "Just don't go to her. Don't be excited." Said, "You just..."
I said, "All right."
And I straightened myself up and went down to see her. And I...?... she said, "Bill?"
And I looked, and her jaws sunk in, and those dark eyes way back. And I knelt down beside of her, and I started praying. We brought her home, her and the baby; we took her out the hospital. They done everything that could be done. Dr. Miller, here, Louisville, come to look at her and said, "There isn't a thing can be done." And went on and on, until she laid just a few hours to live.

L-80 And I was out on patrol when I heard them call me. And I turned on, come down the road as hard as I could. They said, "She's dying." Said, "Calling for Reverend Branham to come to the hospital: Wife dying."
And I went into the hospital (I'll never forget it as long as I live.), rushed up the steps, went over to where she was laying there, looked at her. And she'd already turned over on her side. Dr. Adair coming down the hall, bless his heart. We're neighbors now, and always been buddies. He was coming down the hall; he seen me coming, tears running down his cheeks. And he darted in sideways. And I went in there, I said, "What about it, doc?"
We fished together, hunt together, lived together. He said, "Billy, she's probably gone by now."
I said, "Doc, let me hold your hand. Let's go in together."

L-81 He said, "Billy, I can't go in there." And said, "As many pies and things as Hope's cooked for me and things." Said, "As good as she's been, like my sister." Said, "I can't go in, Bill." And he was breaking his own heart.
And I said, "Doc, I'm going in."
Said, "No, you set here, Bill, just a little while, and we'll let the undertaker come and get her."
And I said, "I'm going in, doctor."
He said, "You can't do it."
And I said, "Yes I can."


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