Death
Six months later, Stratton died suddenly of a stroke. He was 45 years old, 102 centimetres (3 ft 4 in) tall and weighed 32 kilograms (71 lb). Over 10,000 people attended the funeral. P. T. Barnum purchased a life-sized statue of Tom Thumb and placed it as a grave stone at Mountain Grove Cemetery in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Lavinia Warren is interred next to him with a simple grave stone that reads, "His Wife".
In 1959 vandals smashed the statue. It was restored by the Barnum Festival Society and Mountain Grove Cemetery Association with funds raised by public subscription.
The cause of Stratton's extreme shortness was and still is unknown. X-rays were not discovered until 1895, 12 years after Stratton's death, and the medical techniques of the day were unable to ascertain the pathology underlying his dwarfism.
Read more about this topic: General Tom Thumb
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“I shall die as my fathers died, and sleep as they sleep; even so.
For the glass of the years is brittle wherein we gaze for a span;
A little soul for a little bears up this corpse which is man.
So long I endure, no longer; and laugh not again, neither weep.
For there is no God found stronger than death; and death is a sleep.”
—A.C. (Algernon Charles)
“I admit that the generation which produced Stalin, Auschwitz and Hiroshima will take some beating; but the radical and universal consciousness of the death of God is still ahead of us; perhaps we shall have to colonize the stars before it is finally borne in upon us that God is not out there.”
—R.J. Hollingdale (b. 1930)
“Parents shall not be put to death for their children, nor shall children be put to death for their parents; only for their own crimes may persons be put to death.”
—Bible: Hebrew, Deuteronomy 24:16.